Dearest Di Somma,

For my reflection letter I have chosen Racial Profiling, Into the Wild, and Juvenile

Delinquency, as my evidence I have chosen my outline from my bullying research, annotated

articles, and evidence from my Brave New World articles. I will reflect on how I have learned to

create a claim/thesis, create a works cited page, and integrate quotes that support my claim.

Furthermore I will reveal my strengths in writing paragraphs, and adding commentary, also my

weaknesses being my conclusions and introductions. I will also address my academic essays,

ethos/logos/pathos, grammar, and evidence, that I have learned, also some skills that might need

improvements to help meet my writing goals.

In the beginning of the year on October 18th our class wrote the Racial Profiling essay,

entitled which was an argumentative paper. With the Racial Profiling essay being the first major

paper of the semester is was certainly a challenge for me. Since this paper was going to be an

obstacle, I knew I needed a good claim/thesis, stating that Racial Profiling is a controversial

issue in the United States law enforcement policy. Racial Profiling is not necessary because race

is something people cannot control and profiling based on race can lead to an increase of crime.

Shown here, I grab the reader's attention and attract them to my side of the argument to prove my

claim. Although during the writing process I struggled with incorporating multiple quotes from

each source, for example, the US Patriot act needs to improve their laws and enforcements

believe it cannot bear evidence to those who suggest as our former superintendent of the state

police suggested that certain ethnic groups or racial groups disproportionately commit

crimes(Donald). In my essay it showed that I only used one quote in the article by Donald,

when I should have used it two to three times. My second essay to evaluate is my Into the Wild

essay entitled, Chris McCandless which was a literary analysis paper. This essay was written on
November 18th right after we read the Into the Wild book. After re-reading my essay, this was

not the best essay due to my poor grammar use and run-on sentences. For instance, I stated

Chris McCandless was eccentric because he dropped everyone and everything in his life that

was important to him. Shown here is a run-on that should have been re-written with different

word choice and punctuation. The best piece of writing from this essay was my introduction in

the last body paragraph which indicated, Chris McCandless is eccentric because he had an

obsession with nature. Chris thought that the idea of having, no phone, no pool, no pets, no

cigarettes. Ultimate freedom.(132). Incorporating a quote in my intro was a good choice

because you commented good!, which means I was talking about Chris McCandless himself.

The last essay to be evaluated is my Juvenile Delinquency essay, entitled, Age is Just a Number,

written on March 8th. This argumentative essay was my favorite because it required us to find

evidence from our society that related to juvenile delinquency. In this essay I successfully used

bold word do develop a good essay. As shown here, Greg's impulsive behavior led him to think

homicidal thoughts towards his parents. At the beginning of the year my vocabulary wasn't

develop as much as it is now, for example I would have never used impulsivein any of essays.

One thing I could have focused on more was introducing quotes, such as Greg thought a lot

about his parents, he said, I remember lying there thinking: Man, this is just never going to

change. Mom and dad, there never, ever gonna listen to me. Ive got no choice, Ive got to go

through with it(Anderson). In this quote I introduce it by saying he said, instead of

introducing the quote the proper way.

The process work was the key tip in helping me get to the writing goal, I have achieved.

The three process work pieces I have chosen was my outline from the Bullying essay, a draft and

activities from my Brave New World essay. Having a outline for the bullying essay helped me
tremendously because it shows the start of your topic sentence and thesis. As indicated, Thesis:

Youre not alone, everyone has been a victim of bullying. It is an epidemic is our society that

causes innocent beings to struggle through life. This provided me with a step-by-step way to

write the perfect essay. The next key process work that was provided wasa draft from my Brave

New World paper. This also immensely helped me write my academic essay because it allowed

me to have a second chance to make corrections to my paper. Another piece of process work that

helped me reach my writing goal was the activities provided to us during the writing of the Brave

New World essay. This helped me develop a good understanding of how to put my essay

together. One of the activities that stuck out to me was the group discussion activities, for

instance investor and vocabulary enricher. The activity investor stated What are some pictures,

objects, materials, or music that illustrate elements of this section? In response: Incubators and

test tubes. Investor, helped with developing an understanding of what happened in that

particular chapter. The vocabulary enricher provided help with understanding words, such as,

What descriptive words or phrases stand out to you? In response: discarnate, alhambra, and

soliloquized. Without the vocabulary enricher I wouldn't have as advanced vocabulary as I do

now.

I have learned so much over the year from ERWC, one being annotating the text. In the

Juvenile Delinquency essay I annotated many texts out of the ERWC workbook, for instance,

Startling Finds on the Teenage Brain by Paul Thompson indicates, The biggest surprise in

recent teen-brain research is the finding that a massive loss of brain tissue occurs in the teen

years (Thompson). Having these credible sources helped me acquire valuable evidence to create

the perfect paper. Another skill that has improved over the year in ERWC is creating a work cited

page. At the beginning of the year I didn't know how to create one at all, but over the year I have
managed to master the works cited page. In my Juvenile justice paper I conducted a 100%

perfect work cited page. One of my citations consisted of, Harris, Kamala. Juvenile Justice of

California. Department of Justice. Print. 08 Mar. 2017.. In addition I have developed a skills I

was never good at and that is creating a claim/thesis. In my Racial Profiling essay my thesis

stated, Racial profiling is not necessary because race is something people cannot control and

profiling based on race can lead to an increase of crime. This is the best thesis I have ever came

up with because I enjoyed this topic, therefore I was able to come up with a good thesis. A major

skill I have improved on is the submission to www.turnitin.com. Before the year began I had

never used www.turnitin.com but ever since I took ERWC we have used it for almost all of our

essays. It's very helpful because it helps us be credible and truthful to our teachers. Another skill

developed over the course of a year was how to properly cite my evidence. As shown in my Into

the Wild essay. As shown, Chris love nature so much that he thought he was communing with

nature(72). Before this course I didn't know where to put the commas and how to cite the page

number or author. This class has impacted me so much Im excited to take this to college and

improve my writing skills even more.

I have very two uncomplicated strengths and weaknesses when writing any paper. My

two strengths include very descriptive paragraphs and strong reflective commentary. My

weakness however are my introductions and conclusions due to lacking quality transition

sentences. Having descriptive paragraphs helps me continue to provide good evidence that

supports my paper. With having good paragraphs comes with good commentary because it makes

it easier to reflect on the evidence that is given to help supplement my paper. When writing my

introductions, it's very hard to get started, for example when writing a essay I'll be thinking about

it too hard and I tend to get very confused on what to write. With my conclusions it has to be
bold because it's the last thing the reader reads. Therefore my conclusion needs to be bold and

reflect what I have written.

After reading the book Brave New World I was able to annotate the text without any

problem. Im not a very strong reader, therefore providing all the activities really helped me

annotate and understand the book. Also having an outline helps a lot because it has all of our

evidence right there, so you don't have to go back into the book. For example, Mrs. Di Somma

would come over to my desk and comment on all of my evidence that I annotated to make sure I

was on the right track. Another reason why I have developed a better senses of annotation is

because my sister is a really good reader and she has taught me some tips. For instance, she says

start with one chapter at a time and pick out three main points and write them down. Ever

since this book I will continue to follow those steps because they have helped me write this

paper. Having all the resources in ERWC really changed the way I write especially when it

comes to essays.

I believe that I still need improvements on my annotations and taking notes in general. At

the beginning of the year I would take notes but they weren't necessarily the right notes. For

instance, in my Juvenile Delinquency essay I printed out a bunch of sources but half of them

weren't even close to what I needed. As I progress with my reading and writing skills they will

mature over the years, so yes I do see room for improvements. Also another skill that could use

some improvement would be my word choice. At the beginning of the year and even today I still

use repetitive words. I really should try and upgrade my vocabulary as much as I can because

then it will look good on anything I write. I should find other words to substitute the bad ones

such as, like, but, and because.

 With all the steps in making outlines have really helped me succeed in my other classes,

such as my econ and government classes. They require you to do an abundance of reading and

annotating but I don't struggle with that because of what ERWC has provided for me. Based on

what I have heard from friends and family I believe I am ready for any encounters that college

has for me. I know that I took this class for a reason and it was to prepare me for college. College

is going to be a challenge but Im ready for whatever it throws at me! With knowing how to

provide a strong thesis, topic sentence, evidence, commentary, and conclusion to create the

perfect paper. These skills just wont take me through college, I know that I will use them in

everyday life. Mrs. Di Somma set me up for success I can't thank her enough for all that shehas

done for me!

Sincerly,

Jessica Holman