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Jessica Jeong

Professor Corri Ditch

English 115 -- MonWed

09 May 2018

Reflective Essay

Throughout this semester, I was able to grow as a writer and that can be seen through my

essays. I was able to learn from my mistakes because I had the opportunity to revise my graded

essays in order to improve in my writing skills. For my Project Space Essay, I was unable to turn

in my essay on time because I was sick, but I was given the opportunity to turn it in late, and

receive oral feedback. For the Project Text Essay, I turned it in on time, and received an 84% on

the essay which was a surprise to me. I have never received anything higher than a C on an

essay. I was able to improve in my writing because of the different opportunities, such as the

LRC, office hours, and the peers in my class, which help me grow as a writer and improve in my

writing.

When the Project Space Essay was due, I was unable to turn it in on time because I was

sick and I unfortunately missed class that day. I turned it in late, received a zero on the initial

essay, but was given the opportunity to receive oral feedback and revise the essay, in order to

improve my grade. The main issue with the essay was that it was too vague and I did not make it

a narrative. This essay was a struggle for me, because throughout my high school career I was

never allowed to write an essay where I had to analyze my own experiences. Because of this, in

my essay, I used words like “someone” to represent myself instead of using “I”. When I revised

my essay, I kept some parts where I wrote in third person as a way to make a general analysis,
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but then I added my personal experiences where I connected these experiences back to my thesis.

In the Project Text Essay, my formatting and organization of the paper was not the

correct way. I wrote five body paragraphs, where the the first and third body paragraph was

explaining the situations of the two characters. In these paragraphs, I used evidence from the

novel itself, and did not add any textual evidence. In the second and fourth body paragraphs, I

explained their situations and used textual evidence from outside sources, like ​Pursuing

Happiness.​ In the fifth body paragraph, I compared the two characters and their situations. In

order to revise this essay, I combined the different textual evidence in order to make the essay

flow. I also explained how the textual evidence connected to my thesis in order to make sure I

was answering the prompt correctly. This help me get more in depth with my analysis which

helped me dig deeper in the ideas and interpretations I am writing about in my essay. It helped

me be more specific and not be to vague.

I improved in the essays because I was able to revise my essays which helped me learn

from my mistakes. I was able to go back to my essay and be more specific in certains areas and

fix certain parts of my essay. I learned from this course that in order for me to improve and get a

better understanding of how to be a better writer, I would need to receive feedback. Since this

course has given me the opportunity to get the feedback, I have improved in my writing. I was

able to grow as a writer because of the constructed criticism I was given on my essays. I was able

to pinpoint the issues in my essay and revise them in order to improve. I believe that I was able

to improve on my writing skills because I was able to receive feedback on my essays and was

given the chance to fix them. Also during the drafting phase of the writing process, I was able to
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receive more feedback from my peers in class, which helped me improve my writing. They often

told me that my writing was too vague and needed to be more specific.