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Tyler Li

Ms. Sanchez

ERWC, P.3

19 May 2017

Reflection Letter

For my reflection letter I have chosen, Brave New World Essay, Juvenile Essay, and

Bullying Essay: How Can Schools Affect Bullying. In addition, I have selected my three

process work assignments, an article talking about the punishments of juveniles, my Brave New

World chapter 4 questions, and my Brave New World quote chart. From this work, I will reflect

on the skills that I developed such as finding evidence to support a claim, properly citing

evidence, and writing topic sentences. My strengths in writing include using correct MLA format

in my essays and the use of parenthetical citations. However, my weaknesses are finding

insufficient information for my works cited and the use of correct grammar. I will address my

academic essays and my ability to avoid the using of dead words that I have learned, also with

my annotating skills, which I still need to improve on. My goals in writing is to be able to write

essays with sufficient and notable evidence and to give better commentary on my evidence.

The three essays that I have chose throughout the year are my Brave New World essay,

juvenile essay, and bullying essay. My Brave New World essay is a literary analysis and was

written in the second semester. In this book, the World State is a society that is ran much

different from the society we live in.Throughout the process, we also predestine and condition.

We decant our babies as socialized human beings as Alphas or Epsilons (13). The juvenile essay

is a persuasive essay and was written in the second semester. Many adolescents follow the wrong

path in life that leads to crime and drugs. A path of crime can be externally influenced,
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according to Jenkins, the introduction to television can potentially lead to a culture filled with

violence (Jenkins 49). Since crime can influenced by nature, then the parents must try their best

to keep their children on the right path away from violence. For the bullying essay, it was written

in the second semester. This essay is a research paper. This paper taught me the short-term and

long-term effects bullying had on young children and bystanders. Bystanders who witness

bullying can be effects because students have thoughts about not attending school or even

experience depression and anxiety even though they were not being bullied (Victoria). The

effects of bullying can be spread around the environment where the incident is being taken place.

My three pieces of process work are my Brave New World chapter 4 questions, an

annotated article on teen killers, and my Brave New World quote chart. The impact of doing

chapter questions is that it helps me understand the meaning of each chapter and keeps me

focused on what events are taking place in the chapter. The annotated article on teenage children

committing crimes gives me a better understanding on the reasons and what can lead these

children down the wrong path of crime. A chart that is filled with quotes from the Brave New

World allowed me to compare the World State to our society. Allowing me to compare both

societys helped me understand the differences between them and how our society would be if

we were to follow the World State.

Throughout this year, I have been able to find evidence to support my claims. For

example, in my Brave New World essay I found evidence that supported my claim. In the World

State, they predestine and condition. We decant our babies as socialized human beings as

Alphas and Epsilons (13). This supported my claim because in our society we do not predestine

our babies into a certain job for the rest of their life. Another skill that I have is being able to

properly cite evidence. I have been able to do this in the juvenile essay. For example, I stated
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how Greg has jumped through every hoop the state the state has put in front of him (Anderson

5). This allows me and the reader to find the quote easily by looking at the authors last name

and what page the quote was found on. I have become better at writing topic sentences, which

allows the reader to understand the topic of each paragraph straight away. An example would be

from the Brave New World essay, I stated that our society is different to the world state because

of our class structures. Another skill I have become better at is writing relevant commentary. I

was able to do this in my Brave New World essay where the commentary would allow more

information to be told about the topic of the paragraph. I am much better at editing my paper

allowing the final draft to be better than the rough draft. This can be shown in my Bullying

Research Paper where I was able to earn a ninety-four percent on my final draft.

One of my strengths in writing is using correct MLA format in my essays. Being able to

use correct MLA format allows me to receive simple points on my essay and to practice the skill,

so I do not forget the correct format on essays. Another skill would be the use of parenthetical

citations. This allows the reader and also myself to know the author and the page number of

where the quote was taken from. This also makes it easier for the reader to know the author,

which allows them to locate them on the works cited page. One of my weaknesses is finding

insufficient information for my works cited page. For my works cited page, I usually do not have

allow the required fields of information that is needed and this can lead to the reader not being

able to find when a website was accessed or published. My other weakness is my grammar. In

my essays there are many incidents where I do not use the correct punctuation points or I do not

add commas where they are supposed to be added.

In the beginning of the year, my annotating skills were not that well. When it came to

annotating an article for class, I would usually underline or highlight a sentence that stood out to
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me. As the year went by, I have been able to understand the meaning of the sentences that stand

out to me or that show significance and I am able to give commentary on the sentence that give

my understanding and another meaning to the sentence. My works cited page has become a

better skill throughout the year. In the beginning of the year my works cited pages use to be a

website link that I used in essays because that is what I thought a works cited page contained, but

I learned that the page should contain many items rather just a website link. The works cited

page gives the reader more information about the source that I use in my essays, like whether it

is an article or a website and when the source was published.

My critical reading skills have improved in my ability to understand the text that I am

reading in a book or an article. I feel from the beginning of the year and past years that this skill

has gotten better, but there are times where I am reading a book and the type of language they

use is much different from what we usually say makes it difficult to understand what the author

is trying to make us reflect out of the book. This skill still needs improvement because when it

comes to reading books I tend to lose concentration while reading which makes me miss

information that can help me better understand the book or help with chapter questions.

The expectation that I have learned about college reading and writing is that I have to be

able to read and understand higher level text. When it comes to reading a book or an article I

need to be able to annotate and give more information of what the text means to me or to explain

what the author is saying. Skills such as annotating can be used in many of classes such as

Government. For example, when I receive an article to analyze I annotate certain texts that will

help me with future assignments. As I encounter college, I believe that I am well prepared for the

academic writing and reading than before entering ERWC. I have also learned many techniques

and websites that I can use for different assignments in college.I learned several websites, such
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as, Easybib.com where I am able to create citations for my works cited page and merriam

webster that allows me to find definitions for words that I do not know.