Bella Valinoti

C Block

5/3/17

Junior Year English Class

During my junior year English class, we learned and went over many different topics

throughout this school year. I have grown as a writer throughout this year. We have worked on

many different writing techniques this year, through different reading different stories we have

seen unique writing styles. From reading poetry, to different types of stories. I have improved my

supporting details in my essays throughout this year, not rushing through my essays. I still need

to improve on my grammar in my essays.

I have found in previous essays that I would use very broad information to support my

thesis, not as much detail. From going back and reading more about the topic being discussed.

One of my strongest essays I wrote I believe was my Great Gatsby essay. I think because I had

been extremely interested in the book allowing for me to have a better idea of what was

happening and what to write about in my essay. If you have a strong interest in the topic it allows

for you to have a better understanding and easier time writing about the topic at hand. One class

we specifically had dedicated to not having quote bombs in our essays. At the beginning of the

year I struggled with not just throwing quotes into the paragraphs, but throughout my many

essays written for English class it has allowed for me to lead up to the quote. My essays have

gotten stronger because I have been able to add more detail into my body paragraphs and by not

just dropping quotes into the paragraph.

The process of writing an essay is extremely long, it involves a lot of rereading and

editing to make sure it all makes sense in the end. I found throughout the year that the peer
reviews and me personally going through my essays multiple times to make sure its right has

helped my grades in English become stronger. I think that over the past couple of years I have

found myself waiting until last minute to complete my essays, but I have developed much better

time management skills. The more corrections mad during peer editing has helped allow for my

essays to become better. I need people who are critical of my work to give me an outside view on

what I have worked on. If you dont get a strong peer review, often times you miss errors that

were made in the essay resulting in points off. I have made a huge improvement in time

management allowing for my essays to not sound as rushed, and feeling confident with my work.

The area that I need to continue to grow in is my grammatical errors. A lot of the time I

make simple errors in my essays resulting in points off. I have found in many of my essays I

have different grammatical errors each time, from sentence clauses to punctuation. I need to

continue to allow for my knowledge to grow in this area. I think that while creating Weeblys and

doing research on the areas of improvement has really opened my eyes. It has allowed for me to

become more knowledgeable and aware. I will continue to work on my grammatical errors and

making sure that I can avoid them.

In conclusion I have found that as a writer I have grown in many different ways from not

rushing through my essays, to using more specific evidence in my body paragraphs. I still have

to improve upon my grammatical errors that I make in essays and I will do this by continuing to

research the problems I have had.