The Better Writer I Am Today

I started this, 2013-2014, school year excited because it was time and I was a junior already, which meant a step closer to my senior year. Several people told me "Your junior year is the hardest", and now I understand why. Although not impossible, it is challenging. My priorities and expectations rose higher now that I was responsible for team practices and my job. I enrolled in all Pre-AP, AP, and CC classes.

And then there was English CC! I didn't want to take it CC, but I knew it'd bring my GPA up. English had never been my strongest, but this semester I knew it would be easier for me to write essays now. I learned a lot during the last semester and so I decided to use “Education” as my overall semester topic. Also, I wanted my topic to be background knowledge in. After all it’s something that we experience in our everyday lives as students. I strongly know I became a better writer than I was yesterday, the day before that, and so on.

In class, we started off writing our Classical Argument, an essay in which we had five main points. We had the introduction, narration, conformation, refutation, and conclusion. Brainstorming probably became the challenging part in this essay for me. I had to find a topic that would have different argumentative points. I ended up changing it to my final question: “Should students be fined for failing grades?” thanks to the peer revision from my fellow classmate Sara, it was better than what I had first originated because I found many strong points on why people should consider my point. There is money being wasted everyday on students who don’t see education as their priority. So why not charge them? It would definitely benefit many.

As part of my Toulmin Essay, I emphasized using regular paper rather than using future technology. This Toulmin essay consisted of providing a claim, warrant, rebuttal and backing up the statement.  I understood this essay format well. I backed up my essay providing that technology isn’t always dependable, vision problems, and cheating. Of course, I did have some minor problems trying to state as much background knowledge, but my AVID teacher gave me his point of view as well. He told me how he grew up and how he learned in school. It’s always good to ask other people because it helped me build up more on my essay.

Forming our group documented essay was something I really had difficult time writing about. It was difficult forming an essay from trust, education, fangirlism, and someone’s sexual preferences. I didn’t understand how it all came together as one, but thanks to you Mrs. Sheridan it was easy to state how people become more liberal if they believe in other things. In this essay I felt that I had not much to comment about writing the essay. We went through with the original ideas that my teammates agreed upon, even though I didn’t understand it well. But it all worked well in the end. We had formed a well written essay that I favored and helped build up our statement.

As part of my Rogerian Essay I focused more on a student’s special education. It’s a controversial topic and I had to find a way to make it sound neutral. Backing up my reason and sounding neutral seemed a challenge, which I overcame quickly. We had been working this semester on just throwing it out there and just backing up our ideas. It seemed easier though after I got other classmates help. I had to take in consideration the other side of the parents that might want their children in regular classrooms. I now understand that it’s also important to take the opposing readers position. It helps build a better essay trying to convince them on my point of view.  I really enjoyed writing this essay.

            Now I can say that what really helps me is brainstorming with the essay planner, writing my draft one, receiving a peer revision from another classmate, and revising it for my second rough draft. I am actually grateful that you take your time to revise my essays as well. I get even more opinions to make our essays worth reading.

Those five minute one page essays at the beginning of class help me think fast and get it done. I proudly say that thanks to all this I became a better writer. A writer that I never knew I was. I hope better things to come as college comes closer that it’ll immensely help me, and I know they will.