Writing Reflection

Explain one or more specific aspects of your writing that have improved this year. In this explanation, you must directly refer to at least two specific pieces of writing that you produced for this class. You may use any assignment, project, writing sample, draft, blog entry, etc. You should discuss the writing tips & strategies we studied, the processes & methods we used, the critiques & drafts we employed and the products we created (feel free to use these specific key terms to keep your reflection focused).
Our first blog assignment was to outline what we hoped to gain in junior year, what are overall goals are. I wrote that my main goal was to improve my writing, reading and participation in class. I feel proud of my self because I think my writing has improved tremendously over the course of the year. In the beginning of the year I was really shy in class; I felt I was not smart compared to everyone else. Joann, my 10th grade teacher, told me that Randy is a great writer and he is going to push us to give high quality work. I was scared that randy was going to put me on the spot and embarrass me. So I decided not to participate at all in class. The first week past and I realize that randy was really chill so I decided to take honor. I knew that if I took honors it was going to be a challenge because English is not my first language. I decided to take on the honors agreement because I want to become a better writer and I need challenging work where am expected to produce better quality work.
Our first writing project was the American Icon. When I had finished writing my piece I felt I had produced a high quality work. I tried using all of the writing tips we had learned to that point. I used the loop as an outline for my writing piece; I started with a quote and fished it with facts. I compared my first writing project in the 11th grade American icon to an article I wrote and felt the most proud of in 10th grade. I saw a big difference between both of them. My 10th grade article is kind off just there, it has good information but not a really audience and a point trying to be prove. One of the first writing tips we learned in Randy’s class is that amateur writers write for themselves. Professional writers write for and an audience. I realized that writing for my self and not an audience was making my writing pointless. I had good ideas but I didn’t know what I was trying to prove. On my American icon I start off by quoting a poem Sor Juana said, then I took the reader deeper into who Sor Juana is and I end with facts to leave the reader with something to think about I felt I used the loop very well for my first time.
The loop improved my writing tremendously; I started to enjoy writing! Our first honors assignment was to write and article using the loop. In one of the group critiques we had, Randy showed my article as a good example. I was very happy and started to feel comfortable in class.
During internship I was asked to write and article about NAFTA. I was scared at first because I knew writing is not my strength but I could not say no. I send my first draft to Diana my 9th grade teacher so I could give my mentor something that has already been critiqued. Diana wrote back to me saying that she taught it was good and she didn’t have any corrections. I couldn’t believe it! I always got my paper back bleeding with correction. I gave it to my mentor and he liked it; he made a few corrections and then he published it.
When we started brainstorming for ampersand I tried to think of a topic I was passionate about and I want people to be aware. I tried applying a lot the writing tip we had learned over the year in my ampersand-writing piece. I wanted it to be the highest quality work I had produced in class. The writing tips I used the most was concerts not pancakes to keep my sentences strong improve quantity to improve quality removing “ing” making meaning early and many more. Overall I think I did pretty well, I mixed my personal experience with facts and I think I left the reader with something to think about. What helped the most was drafting and revision I went trough about 2 drafts of brainstorming and 3 writing critiques "create, share, critique and repeat! I know that my writing is not even close to high quality work but it has improved. I appreciate the time that Larry Rosenstock the CEO of HTH took to came to talk to my class about how proud he is of ampersand. Larry read some sentence he liked from my article and explained how he agreed and connected with them. I felt I had accomplished that reading tip were the writer creates a relation ship with the audience.


Describe one specific goal for your future writing. Your explanation of your goal(s) must include some or all of the following: writing samples from this year, writing strategies you have used in the past, writing strategies or techniques you would like to develop, examples from authors you respect, etc.

Now that I learned how to write! My goal for my future writing is to expand my vocabulary. This was one of my primary goals when the year began, but I didn’t have a chance to improve on it as much as I wanted to. I want to expand my vocabulary so I can transfer my ideas to paper with more power and imagery.
One of the authors I respect is Kurt Vonnegut. I feel his writing is very interesting his analogy are very strong and the whole time you are reading his books you have a clear image of what he is talking about. It’s also kind of easy to interpret thing differently since he writes about strong topics and compares them to something completely different like babies and war.