Yearly Reflection

Austin Howard

Dr. deGravelles

Block 2

4/30/12

Yearly English Reflection

This year in English I think that I have come a long way in the way I write and have a better understanding of the overall writing process. Even though I do still need improvements in some areas of writing, I feel that I have improved greatly from the first semester. In some areas I don’t believe I need much help at all while other areas of writing, I need to do better.

After looking at all of the comments and editions that were made on my papers, I realized a couple of things that I seemed to have trouble on throughout the year that were consecutive through out my papers. One of the largest issues that I had on seemingly all of my papers was simply actually focusing on what is supposed to be written. I seemed to go off on tangents or start talking about something else and go into detail about it when I was supposed to be focused on something else, or sometimes just missing the entire topic all together. I seemed to get a bit better with that every essay I wrote but I have always seemed to struggle with this issue and I still struggle with it. I hope to improve with this issue in the next year or so, or maybe even erase the mistake all together.

I also struggled quite a lot with the MLA format and citing in my papers. I don’t think that I fully understood how to put my paper into the correct format, or properly cite certain quotations and give credit to the author. I would get confused about the authors name, and where to properly place the first or last name, or just last when applicable. Now that I have written many papers this year though, many that I have had to cite names, I believe I have gotten better with the process and can now cite authors properly.

One of my greatest strengths, while writing, is my use of word choice. I believe I have improved much on this. After scanning over my papers thoroughly, my choice of words never seemed to be an issue. When writing, I always try to avoid repeating the same words too often, and to use a wider variety of words in my work. I’ve found that this use to be an issue at a younger age, and somewhat at the beginning of this year. Once I grew older and my vocabulary expanded, I strove to use more advanced words. At first, it was a challenge to do so, although as I used more developed words in my writing, I also used them in everyday talk. Using these words regularly seemed to help me to understand the words and even encourage me to use them more in writing.

After contemplating over the responses I received on my papers, I now understand what I did that was incorrect. I have definitely learned from these mistakes and I’m sure that this will help me not to make the same errors in the future. While writing, I now find it easier to find mistakes that I would have previously over looked.

For the years to come, I imagine that my writing will get better, and I hope it does. My plan to improve my writing is maybe to write some over the summer. About random stuff, just to make sure I don’t get rusty. I think this will help me for next year because at the beginning of school years, I usually have trouble getting back into writing.

This years English class seemed rather brutal at some times, but now that I look back on it, I’m sure it will pay off and it definitely has helped me, quite a lot. I’m quite glad that it was so tough; I believe it has prepared me for next year and has set helpful guidelines for me that I wont forget.