Final Reflection

      Throughout this year, I have improved my communication, reading, and writing. I have learned to develop my communication by being concise and having my statements of purpose be direct and firm. This helped me to improve both my writing and my overall communication. My reading skills have improved and I feel that they now surpass the expectations for my age; I have learned how to recognize and use symbolism in reading literature and in writing. My biggest improvement in writing this year was in my organization, I learned how to transition between my pieces and the result made my writing seem much more professional. My best piece this year was my revolution piece, “The Diary of Adele Moreau.” I feel that this piece really show-cased me as a writer because I was able to be creative and use my own techniques instead of the basic essay format.
      My strengths as a writer are in purpose and voice/tone. I excel in purpose because I have a very concise writing style that is very to the point and therefore easy to read and clearly understand. I think that I displayed this a lot in my Editorial, with my thesis and topic sentences. I consider my voice and tone a strength because I have the ability to change and fit my tone based on audience. An example of this would be the difference between formality in my persuasive letter to Mr. McMannon and the fun british slang that I incorporated into my dialogue. My major weakness as a writer is in analysis. Because I have a consice writing style, I often tend to be to concise in my analysis and leave that area of my essays lacking. An example of this would be in my letter to Mr. McMannon; I gave the fact “According to a study done in Baltimore in 2004, 68% of students said that school was one of their top 5 stressors” and provided little to no evidence after it.
      My two writing goals for second semester were to eliminate all passive voice from my pieces and to incorporate rhetorical strategies into my persuasive writing. I accomplished both of these goals. Even though I believe I only had one persuasive piece this semester, my editorial, I still found myself improving in these categories.