Mason Vodry

8/27/14
Draft 1

My first paper in Public School

I was Homeschooled for most of my childhood until Sophomore year when I decided to
go into public school. I enjoyed staying at home because I could spend more time with my
family. While I was Homeschooled I didnt do much writing. I wasnt very good at putting my
thoughts onto a piece of paper. I would write sometimes but I wasnt very good at it because i
wasnt able to get my point across. I also had bad handwriting so I didnt enjoy writing because
it was hard for me to have good penmanship. My spelling wasnt that great either so I was
always trying to improve at spelling and not worrying about being good at writing. I enjoyed

Comment [W1]: Random capitalization

Comment [W2]: Capitalization:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/592
/01/
Comment [W3]: See comment above
Comment [W4]: This is a fine topic sentence,
but its not exactly interesting. Check this out:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/businesscareer/public-speaking/openings-and-closings
Comment [W5]: This seems off topic.
Comment [W6]: Redundant can you
combine these ideas into one sentence
instead?
Comment [W7]: redundant
Comment [W8]: Im not sure what you mean
by this.

math and science a lot. I feel like with it being closed ended I could just memorize the steps and
then I would get the problem right. I was much better at doing hands on projects.

Comment [W9]: Do you think everything in

this paragraph is related to the topic sentence?

When I went into high school I didnt know what to expect, therefore I went into all
academic classes. My last class of the day was English II I was dreading it, but when i met you
Ms. Deal, I felt a lot better. You were really nice and that really helped myself me become more
comfortable and have a better outlook on the class. I started off doing well on the reading and

Comment [W10]: When Word underlines

something, its a good idea to check it out and
decide if you should fix it.
Comment [W11]: If you are writing to her, it
might help if you addressed it as a letter at the
beginning: Dear Ms. Deal

vocabulary quizzes because it was all memorization, however I did struggle on the writing. Our

Comment [W12]: Run-on http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/gra

mmar/what-are-run-on-sentences

writing assignments were done in class which didnt help me. I think I might of performed better

Comment [W13]: Tense shift. Struggled

might be better.

if I was able to go home and write the papers.

Our first serious paper came along in class. You gave us the prompt at the beginning of
class and we had until the end of class to complete it. This task was hard for me because I got
really stressed when I got the prompt. I didnt know how to respond to the statement and I just
couldnt think of anything to say about it. Therefore I was rushed because I was trying to write

Comment [W14]: Its might have. Might of

is not a thing.
http://stancarey.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/wou
ld-of-could-of-might-of-must-of/
Comment [W15]: awkward

Mason Vodry
8/27/14
Draft 1

the most that I could. Because of this I made a lot of grammatical mistakes which I knew would

Formatted: Highlight

bring my grade down.

When we got our papers back I saw that you gave me a 65%. I saw that I made a lot of
spelling and grammatical mistakes. Also, I made other mistakes that I didnt realize I made. Even

Comment [W16]: Maybe use a different

word?

though I didnt get a good grade I feel like it was good for me to receive that feedback. This gave

Formatted: Highlight

me a good understanding of what I needed to improve on and gave me hope that I would be able
to do better next time. I took the criticism as a way to help me to improve. I wasnt mad at the

Comment [W17]: Redundant

teacher you because I knew my paper wasnt the best. Our teacher told us that people who got

Comment [W18]: You keep switching

between addressing her directly and talking
about her. You need to decide who your
audience is and go with it.

under a certain grade would have a chance to go to a writing tutor and would be able to rewrite
their paper. I was excited to hear this because I had a chance to better my grade. I went to the
tutoring and got some good advice from the people there and realized that a lot of my mistakes
were easy fixes. The tutors showed me that I could improve my sentence structure to make my
papers flow better. I also had many repeating sentences and misspelled words. After I went to the
tutoring and I began to rewrite my paper I took a lot more time writing it. I thought about what
the tutors said and I corrected myself while I was writing it.

Comment [W19]: Redundant

I finished writing my paper and turned it in. This time I felt much better about the paper
that i had fixed. I had more time to write and I was very confident that my grade would improve.

Formatted: Highlight

When I got my second grade I saw that you gave me an 85%. I was very proud of myself for
improving so much. This experience increased my interest in my English classes from then on. I
felt like I could become a decent writer in the long run. I improved a lot throughout that class and
ended up eventually taking English Honors my Senior year.

Comment [W20]: Capitalization

Comment [W21]: How does this experience
help you now?