Writing Reflection

At the beginning of this school year I came in not really knowing what would be expected of me in the writing department. The first writing assignment that I was given was the American Icons project. Below is a link to my final My American Icons project: http://thesearemyshannanigans.blogspot.com/2009/09/blog-7-final-draft-american-icons.html I’ve re-read this piece of writing that I started out with this year and I see it as a good starting point for what I’ve learned this year so far. At the beginning of the year we hadn’t really learned many writing tips. The first week or so we learned about the loop which is starting with a strong idea, having support detailing in the middle and then ending again with that strong idea. We also learned about make meaning early and concerts not pancakes. This concept basically says to have the information at the beginning of a sentence or paragraph. When there is a verb or a main idea at the beginning of a sentence then the piece of writing will have a good chance of being stronger. Looking back at this article, I can see how much my writing has improved throughout the year. In my first piece of writing I can see that I didn’t have evidence, any back up information or even a strong idea that I really actually focused on throughout the entire piece. My most recent piece of writing was my Ampersand article. I personally thought that this was one of my best pieces of writing. Throughout the entire year we learned many different writing tips. I applied each of them to the best of my ability in this article. The amount of drafts and rewriting I did for this article is unbelievable. I think I had about 10 people read my article over and over again to try and make it perfect. I had a new draft nearly everyday. I learned that quantity improves quality. The more I worked on my article, the stronger it was. I’ve never really written something that had to do with a life experience of mine, so coming up with an idea was a little difficult for me. Having the freedom to choose what we wanted to write about was refreshing but I had to search my brain for an idea that I felt passionate about and was interested in writing about. When I did come up with my idea, I knew exactly who to go to so I would have precise and exact information for my article. I had primary sources and even someone to talk to about the whole program that I was writing about in my article. I’ve learned that writing about a life experience of your own produces better quality of work. I know that being able to put my input, thoughts and ideas into an article was ten times easier than writing about an informational topic that doesn’t really relate to yourself all that much. With Ampersand I was really able to express myself through writing. I was able to write about something that I care about and then input my ideas in about education. Ampersand is my piece of writing that I am absolutely proud of. In the future, I am really hoping to improve upon my writing. I’ve always been one to keep up with my writing with journaling all the time. I never really put that much effort into my writing prior to this year. I’ve learned different tips, techniques and how to set up an outline for producing a good piece of writing. This year I really learned how to write. All the concepts from before were put together and producing a good piece of writing was the goal for the year. I succeeded with this with my Ampersand article. I want to keep writing and also improve upon it. I’ve never really thought about actually writing, but being told that my Ampersand article was amazing really inspired me. I’m hoping that in senior year, I’ll have more opportunities to learn more about writing. The most important piece of writing that I will need in the next couple months will be my essay for colleges. I’m hoping to produce an amazing piece of writing and I know all of the tips that I’ve learned this year will contribute to that.