Nora Farmer

Skills Reflection
Written Expression
For my skill of written expression, I am including my Absolute True Diary of a
Part-Time Indian, By Sherman Alexie and my Peasants and Their Identity History
argument. Both of these assignments included an argument and how I felt toward the
topic. I a horrible at writing, it is not my strong suit. I have a hard time focusing on the
writing itself, I would come up with ideas and forget them the second I have to write
them down in an essay format. Sometimes my mom would help me by having me talk
and her type, but I didnt like that very well. My teacher, Dr. Doyle, offered to help me
multiple times, but I didnt want to show that I couldnt get the work done because I was
terrible at writing.
Dr. Doyle was my ninth grade history teacher and according to other teachers he
is the hardest teacher I would get. By the time we had to write our first essay, we were
about two months into the year, and we had been studying the Medieval times. We were
having a class discussion when he handed us a paper that looked like a rubric for an
essay. He stopped the conversation and started to talk about the assignment. I liked the
topic and was interested in it but I couldnt write an entire argument paper on it. I was
terrified, terrified of writing the essay, terrified I would get a F and he would be
disappointed in me. That night I had argued with my parents about homework and how I
dont need to do it if I had a study hall before class, again. My mom knew I was avoiding
writing my paper, so she emailed Dr. Doyle and asked if he could help me on the paper.
This happened every time I had to write an essay, in any subject.
Near the middle, of this year, for English, we were reading a book called
Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, By Sherman Alexie. We knew that near the
end of the trimester we had to write an essay, at least I figured that we had to. At the
end of class she handed us the essay prep doc. I skimmed through it and thought, this
is easy, I can do this; and I did and I was proud of myself.
I swear, I was progressing. I started to like writing papers in english because Mrs.
Volpe had as focus on topics I liked to actually liked. My teachers in middle school hated
that I would refuse to write a paper on the topic we were learning because the class
bore me, now I like writing papers more on topics that are interesting. Most of the time I
just write stuff from class and stuff that I think need to be said in the paper. My dad
would help me but most of the time he changes the way I say it and it frustrates me.