Cassidy Kelly

ERWC Period 3
Writing Sample #5- Reflection
There is much to be said as I reflect on the process of all of the writing I have completed
this semester. I feel as though I have grown immensely in my abilities and through each writing
assignment I have learned skills to apply to my writing in the future to continue to advance. The
idea of having regular writing assignments that correlate to each unit as well as these writing
samples on the side brought be through a wide range of emotions. At first I was confused about
what was what because I think my mind started to shut down at the stress of too much work.
When I really took the time to figure out what needed to be done, I was briefly concerned with
these assignments but soon realized that it was actually beneficial towards my learning as well
as demonstrating the skills that I have gained.
The writing assignments for each unit were very interesting and I actually enjoyed them
all especially because we had options and wiggle room with each prompt. For the Juvenile
Justice Essay, we were able to address a certain issue raised by arguments about justice for
juvenile delinquents. I enjoyed this topic because I researched and learned a lot that I was not
aware of before and I formed a definite opinion on the issue that I was able to argue for. This
helped me to gain knowledge about things going on in the world that I can carry on in life. I think
I wrote this paper quite well and I learned to work on really explaining all evidence in detail. This
improvement factor was carried over into my next two essays as well. For the Gender,
Language, and Culture writing assignment, we were able to discuss a social issue that we
related too in one of many options of writing forms. I chose to write a speech about
homelessness because I see it to be extremely prevalent around me. I enjoyed this writing
assignment immensely because it helped me use a tone that was to push for understanding on
my topic and ways to fix it. I discovered that I really prefer to write in speech form more than
anything else because it is very free and not so formal. It is direct and you can use powerful
sentences that often might seem like unnecessary fluff in an essay. I felt as though I did an
exemplary job on this essay and I continued to work towards deeply explaining the evidence I
found through my research. The last formal writing assignment was the 1984 essay. Again we
got to choose one of three prompts and I think that being given this choice makes me feel more
inclined to write the essay because I feel as though I had some opinion in what I am writing
about and I can pick my preference to show my best writing skills and learn the most. I chose to
discuss the topic of how technology in our world relates to that of the surveillance technology
existing in the novel 1984. In this essay I again had to use facts that I researched to support my
reasoning and I was able to continue to work on elaborating on this evidence. I learned to use
the rule of doubling the number of sentences of the evidence in the explanation. If the
information I found and cited is two sentences long, I described it in four sentences. I think I did
a nice job of this and did well on this essay also. However, I struggled a little with making five
clear and progressive paragraphs on the topic. I think this is because what each paragraph
needed to exist was not extremely laid out for me and this was actually good because it
prepared me for the future when I have to do work without strict guidelines.
As for the writing samples, I think they overall went well for me. I started out pretty strong
when I finished the first one early on and thought I was write on track. I then started my issue
research essay and chose the topic of human trafficking because it had been coming up in
discussions and I thought it would be good to talk about. I got about halfway through and then
began putting it off because I was going through a very stressful time and the topic was very
heavy so I always put other work first and figured I had plenty of time left more my writing
samples. I eventually rallied and finished all of the work in one day as well as fixed up my
writing, using the directions on Haiku as a guideline. I ended up feeling really good about how
my issue research paper came out and I was proud of the work I had done on a serious topic.
The end of the year started coming up fast and I was extremely busy with being in the dance
show in 12 dances as well as being the student director of the show for my senior project. My
time became fully invested in that and I continued to put off the writing samples. I became very
anxious about getting them done and as soon as my senior project ended I put a ton of time into
focusing solely on completing the samples efficiently. I ended up finishing my theme response in
class one day and I felt pretty good on it. I was upset to see that I had received a low grade of a
C on it but I also knew that that was most likely a result of my stress over putting the work off
and it helped me learn not to do so again. I saved the narrative for last and I dreaded starting it
because I believed that it was hard to write a good story at this age that wasnt cheesy or too
young and simple. Im not totally sure why I had this in my head because once I sat down and
thought out a storyline, I was able to just start throwing words on the paper and crank out a
story that I was very proud of. I realized that the benefit of writing a narrative is that it can be
about anything that I please to write about. I ended up writing about a topic that I related to and
was able to also put in a slightly eerie and unexpected twist on it. I felt like it did a good job of
being a sample of the way I write and this was confirmed when I did well on it.
Overall, the writing samples may have been in a pain to think about but once I actually
sat down and allotted time to work on each one, they were enjoyable because they each had
broad guidelines. I was able to show my best writing skills in different essay formatted with my
own chosen topics. I think that the grades I received on each one were accurate to how good I
am to writing in these styles and I now know which ones I need to work on improvements in.
The formal essays were not too demanding and I am happy with the feedback that I received on
them because I believe it was fair. I learned that I have strengths in my writing such as creating
a good introduction and hooking the reader on what I am saying with thought-provoking ideas. I
also discovered some of my weaknesses to improve on which include splitting my writing into
paragraphs where need be and to explain, explain, explain when using evidence. I am very
pleased to have taking this course because I truly believed I have grown as a writer when I
wasnt sure it was possible anymore in the same monotonous english classes! I am proud of all
that I have accomplished with my writing and believe that it has prepared me very well to move
forward into college-level writing.