The essay I decided to improve was one from October of 2017, one where I wrote about

the use of symbolism and personification in relation to the novel The House on Mango Street by
Sandra Cisneros. I improved this essay in a large manner of ways, and the biggest improvement
that was necessary to make this a decent paper was including more in-depth analysis. Although
there was the start of some good ideas about the quotes I used and the symbols at hand, it was
only a start, and all ideas were very surface level. I also failed to properly see some of the issues
at hand— I analyzed how the protagonist, Esperanza, felt about growing up in relation to her
getting verbally harassed, and mostly talked about that in relation to growing up. I should have
talked about growing up in relation to growing up as a woman more, and the lack of this was due
in part to me not knowing how to express my ideas, and my own shortcomings as a freshman in
highschool. I also implemented quote integration incorrectly, as I used a lot of brackets to change
words in the quotes, and didn’t include enough surrounding context for the quotes at times. This
was definitely an easier fix, and I am now more pleased with my quote integration skills. Despite
this, I still picked sufficient quotes good analysis could come from, and my overall essay
structure was solid and did not need much improvement. The largest area of improvement was
the aforementioned lack of analysis, as there were some points that freshman-me did not offer
enough explanation to. In all, this essay was an apt reflection of the writer I was as a freshman in
high school, where I often lacked depth in analysis over all else.