Reflections, Reflections...

This year, I have done two essays, about the same kind of topics, and different books. Both of them have been uploaded on this blog. The first essay is about the characterization of Santiago in the alchemist. In the second essay, which has been uploaded recently, is about the characterization of Cassius in the play Julius Caesar. The first essay was written in October, while the second was written in October. During those months, I was able to increase my writing drastically.

Ideas and Content:

In October, I had problems with finding quotes that are important and straight forward. I also had a hard time saying why they were important. I was able to gradually improve this over the months, using trial and error methods, as I went through other units such as the Renaissance.

In my first essay, it did have appropriate ideas and content, but it was just not clear when first read. While I was reading the essay, I was just confused, therefore, had to read the essay over and over again. On my second essay, I have improved on getting appropriate ideas and content, however, it still is a little repetitive, especially on the conclusion. This was because I was out of ideas while writing the conclusion. I could improve on this with more practice and planning, before writing the essay in class. Doing this, I might be able to avoid too much repetition.

Organization:

The alchemist essay was very messy, and because of that, the ideas were all over the place. The biggest problem of the essay was that the transition between each phrase wasn’t that smooth, which also gave some problems with the organization. On my Second essay, I was able to fix this with reading and checking my essay after writing it. Also, during the school year, I learnt how to carefully read the directions, by taking time to read the directions first, and highlighting it. This has helped me think about what to write and plan things out before I started writing

Personal growth

I think that I have been able to see personal growth in myself during the past few months. Not only has the length of the essay increased, but the quality and the depth has increased as well. I say this, because, for one thing, my grade difference between the two essays was 13% (75% for the alchemist essay and 88% for the Cassius Essay). I think that the sheer practice I got over the months helped me increase the quality of the essays.

SLRs

Reason Critically: I had access to it while writing the essays, because that is what writing an essay is all about. In the first essay,which was about the alchemist, I was able to reason critically, but, I lacked evidence that showed the reader that I was doing so. This was due to the lack of planning. I realized this after I got the papers, and the grade for the essay showed this.

In the second essay,I was still able to reason critically, and this currently has no problem. Instead, I have to work on preparing for the essays.