TIme Travel!

Welcome to my webpage! It has been a fun and little adventure on being on this website.
I’ve learned and explored an abundance of new roots in my writing experience. It just seems like
yesterday I started to write. I’ve started this website ever since I was a freshman in High School.
I went back to look at my old essays, stories, and papers I made ever since I was in 9th grade
on my website that you are looking at now. I will be discussing in depth at the start of 9th grade.

9th grade… I would say I’m impressed at my younger self for writing an essay. I wasn’t a
very good writer for essays during the time. I knew back then I needed an intro, 3 paragraphs
for essays, and a conclusion. I thank my elementary school for teaching me how to write
essays. When I was freshman, I had an essay that reflected on Argument Writing. The essay
referenced back to ​To Kill A Mockingbird​. In the essay my younger self wrote, “Scout proves
herself as the bravest character by being different than most ladies. In the text Atticus says: she
asked me to tell you must try to behave like the little lady and gentleman that you are (p.133).”
I’ve put evidence here but not only that… I put where the evidence was from! My younger self
learned how to put a page number and explain where the evidence have come from. My
younger self and I have growth a lot as writers. Looking further into these papers, I’ve learned
that I always want to try and sound sophisticated and try some new ideas on how to write. Just
like this first essay I wrote!

During my 9th grade year I made my first story assignment called “The Robot and the
Person”. An interesting story about a robot and a human connection to emotions. It was a sad
ending, but a great story nonetheless. I so impressed at my younger self once again! The story
had semicolons used correctly. Here’s an example, “The pain fields were very beautiful; so
peaceful”. For a beginner of writing stories, I’m impressed! I’ve read many novels back then in
middle school that I gain the knowledge on how to use some quotations in my writing. I was
always fond of reading stories and always entranced with the plot itself and for their endings.
Ah! I’ve noticed a mistake just now. In the story the word “pain” is used here. I presume that I
never catched that when reading it or read it over. That’s not the end of the world - It’s the
beginning of being a writer! I’ve learned how to use semicolons meaning I was slowly learning
how to use grammar, but also adjusting on checking any spelling corrections.

Sophomore year is when I started to write more intense essays and had a time limit to
write them which was as I can remember… frustrating. Now, I was ready to take the challenge
back then and now in 2019 I wouldn’t call it a challenge now. It’s an accomplishment. My first
Final Exam for semester 1 was something to say the least. I feel like I could’ve done better
during the time and can see what I needed to improve on. On the second paragraph when I
explained the evidence about how there is injustice in the world if no one speaks. This essay
was about Martin Luther King in Birmingham Jail and going back to Alvarez story on how she
wanted people to speak up. What the essay had was, “which supports the claim by showing that
if she just shuts her mouth then no change would happen. This also appeals to logos because
it’s true. If you don’t speak then no one knows anything or say anything.” I’ve explained what the
evidence was talking about, but how does this effect logos? My younger self briefly explained
logos but lots of readers would not know the full details of this story or how or what does the
reader know. I still make this mistake today but not as often as before. I’ve learned that on
becoming a great writer, I have to make the reader understand what the main paper is about.

It was my last few days of being a sophomore and I was writing my final essay about the
famous Shakespeare play “Macbeth”. Here, I felt rushed on the time and since it was my last
final and was going to count a huge grade my younger self panicked and decided to summarize
the entire play in the introduction on an essay instead explaining briefly on the claim and head
straight to the point of explaining the story on who was the blame of Macbeth’s madness. My
younger self wrote this essay very quickly without even thinking. At the beginning of the essay,
as I said before, my younger self summarized the play without explaining too much in depth
about Macbeth. However, there wasn’t a clear claim in the introduction. The claim was later in
the second paragraph which the rubic did not want. The rubic wanted the claim in the
introduction but on the second paragraph I wrote, “The second reason why Lady Macbeth was
the cause of Macbeth killing spree was she wanted him to become king instead of Duncan”.
Even if my claim was misplaced during the time, I was trying new things. Many writer’s today do
not write their claims in the beginning because writers need to persuade the reader to keep
reading if they seem interested or have to further read it. This tactic is a good way to create
essays or reflections pieces and that what I saw my younger self was trying to do without even
knowing.

Junior year was the year where I developed these skills I previously learned and made
them something new. I made another story in my Junior and try to refresh my writing style into
more characters talking to each other instead of writing backstory or what the characters are
doing. This assignment was called “Brave New World” where I had to write a story based on the
past and decided to reflect on the French revolution and relating back to greed. I expected my
last year self to write very well that the reader knew who was talking back and forth. First the
queen speaks and then the servant:
“‘Why would I go to that dump? There is never anything there!’
‘But-but-but, your majesty! We have not been in that part of town for such a long time. I believe
we should head back and see what they grasp this time.’
She pondered and pondered if this was a good idea. Her servant convinced her,
‘The small things in life are sometimes the most precious gifts.’
She couldn’t help but agree, ‘Then let’s go!’ ”
Here in this story, we can see how the queen is very childish, naive, and easy to convince. The
junior year I really knew how to write stories and I appreciate that my freshman year self knew
how to write stories and was learning how to write and fix any grammar mistakes, but my junior
year self really took the time on this story and checked on any punctuation - which I approve!
Many writers need to recheck their work to make it clear and polished. I always want to make
my work with clarity to make my reader feel how much time I take on writing and how much
effort I put in my work.
 I was close to the end of my Junior year and my final assignment this year was creating
a slideshow and explaining my topics about ​The Great Gatsby​. Now, reading this book was
tough enough, but creating a slideshow about what each color motif meant in the book. On the
slideshow I used evidence based on the book and explained about Daisy’s and Gatsby’s
relationship, “Showing how Gatsby’s and Daisy’s relationship is distorted with many colors like
it’s unclear on what their relationship is, but it can also symbolize Gatsby’s and Daisy’s mixed
emotions for each other”. “How can a slideshow make you a better writer?” I can hear that in my
head reader but let me explain. Becoming a writer does include writing in a paper, but planning
ahead of what to write is the key. In this example, I wrote my explanation on thinking about the
meaning of the distorted colors. I did not write this out of blue or last minute. I had to take my
time to think about each symbolism in the book and explained my views of the symbolism.
Becoming a writer needs patience. Planning on what to say or write is first then you write about
what you planned but more clearly.

Senior year rolls and I get more essays. However, I was always ready for a challenge. I
once again was writing essays timed, but I had experience (thanks to my sophomore year)! My
timed prose passage was about a girl name Estrella. I explained in depth on how the girl
changed her emotions throughout the passage, ​“​This paragraph shows lots of details and by
putting strong words such as “power” and “coolness of iron”. These words represent further to
Estrella’s character on how strong she became after holding those tools. Holding those tools
gave her a sense of power and the word iron is used to show the strength is within Estrella and
how Estrella can learn new things and face head-on”. The evidence shows how I learned how I
interpret a character based on how the text is using for the character. Becoming a writer has to
look back at the evidence to explain in detail about their thoughts just how I did in my junior
year. I also learned that my writing tone in this essay was very monotone and quickly go through
the text and explanations to keep the reader engaged longer.

Finally, the year where High school ends… senior year. Senior year was the time to
express new growths and showed my true self now after all the younger selves did that got me
here. One of my best works this senior year was the assignment “Perspectives on Beloved
Essay”. This essay... I poured my soul on it! I researched ahead to use for evidence just like
The Great Gatsby​ assignment and used my thoughts and feelings, about the Beloved essay.
The difference between all the essays I wrote back then was that I had to put the claim in a
different paragraph instead of the first paragraph. I was surprised by it back then but it was a
great start to step out of my boundaries on writing traditionally. On my assignment, I wrote about
the book ​Beloved​, “​It made many readers feel disturbed but that was how Morrison was making
it be. Morrison made her book different from the rest in 1987 with its graphical detail and the
strong symbolism which made people amazed from the strong details to express every
character’s sorrows and strengths”. I was impressed at myself during the time and even now
from searching up new vocabulary words and a more well-written text than the previous essays.
I finally saw that my writing skills were improving and couldn’t have been prouder.
 Overall, I still have a long way to go to learn from my mistakes, but I can see most of all
that I’ve developed new growths on writing. Writing all of these essays, stories, and
assignments really gave my present self a great boost to learning how to write. Without
freshman year, I wouldn’t learn how to re-check for any grammar mistakes. Sophomore year for
beating against the clock to write. Junior year, using evidence to explain more, and finally the
senior year to combined from all I learned into now. Moving ahead to college to write essays will
be a little easier now since I’ve written many essays in my high school years and now it is
leading me into this moment. Not only writing essays will be easier but reading passages.
Imagine this, a college professor wants the students to read an article by next class. My future
self will read these articles and maybe take their time from reading it but most importantly will
understand what the hard texts mean or going in depth on the meanings of the words. I’ll work
hard and become the best writer out there someday! I enjoy writing from time to time and hope
to express my ideas more in writing.