M.+Course+Reflection

Ov er the course of this year I believe to have grown a lot as a writer. A few writing areas where I have improved include stronger use of vocabulary, a better flow of sentences, and an overall higher level of essay writing skills. In the beginning of the year I had a lot of weak points to my writing, but over the course of the year my abilities got a lot better.

In my government essay for example, my developed vocabulary is clearly evident. Words like “sustainable,” “productivity,” and “crucial” that I picked up over the course of the year have greatly improved how my writing sounds. Also, my individual paragraphs have improved in quality because I have become better at making my sentences flow. For example, in my SAT essay, in the lines “This is because the assumptions and rational conclusions that people make about the world around them have been developed and solidified throughout their lives, making it difficult to believe otherwise. While many common sense beliefs do have a purpose in making society function effectively, their validity is not necessarily certain. People should be open to beliefs that run counter to common sense, because truth does not necessarily have to make sense,” it is evident how the ideas in the sentences work off of each other. When I wrote my persuasive essay on celebrities at the beginning of the year, my paragraphs were less organized and my ideas were more scrambled. As I revised the essay for the final portfolio, I noticed how I was able to form my paragraphs in a clearer way and to make my ideas flow much better.

I believe a main strength that I have developed over the course of the year is vocabulary. The weekly spelling quizzes helped me a lot with increasing the quality of vocabulary that went into my writing. Also, my organization has gotten a lot better, but something I still need to work on. I consider that one of my main weaknesses. It has increasingly improved since the beginning of the year though. My first few essays were extremely choppy and unorganized, but they progressively got better with time. Most of my essays now flow a lot better than they did in the beginning of the year.

My favorite piece of writing in my portfolio has to be my American dream paragraph, because even though it is merely a paragraph long, it holds my hopes for the future. I hope to reach and achieve all the goals in my American dream. My least favorite piece of writing in my portfolio would probably have to be my persuasive research essay, not because it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, but because I was very limited in expressing myself and having a voice in my paper.

I believe that Wiki Space and paper portfolios both have their equal share of advantages and disadvantages. Wiki Space is a lot faster,

but paper portfolios personally make it a lot easier for me to catch any mistakes I have made. Overall I would probably have to pick

paper portfolios over Wiki Space because I have more experience with them and I am more comfortable with completing a paper

portfolio as opposed to something over the computer.