Massey 1

Will Massey

8 June 2023

A Block

Mr. Smith

End of the Year Reflection

Over the second semester, my writing has improved a lot. I became more confident in my

writing skills. I began to be able to write more individually without as much help. I would say

towards the start of semester two, my writing progress slowed down a bit, but each essay was

better than the next. Also, I have been enjoying writing a little bit more recently. Although I'd

rather be doing other things, I do think it is good for me to improve my writing skills because I

will need them in the future. One thing that I have improved upon in my recent writing is my

ability to synthesize quotes. I have always had trouble with that, but as I kept writing and getting

help it started to improve. My recent argumentative essay exemplifies this as I did a good job

synthesizing the quotes. Although it isn't perfect, I am still happy with the progress that I have

been making. As I have said in many of my reflections, I have improved a lot on writing quote

integrations as I have learned many new methods to them. I also have been slowly improving my

analysis skills. At the start of semester two, my analysis skills weren't as good as they are now.

My analysis sections of my papers were choppy and needed work. But as the semester went on it

kept getting better. Now it still isn't great, but it is something I can improve on in the future.

One skill that I still need to improve on is summarizing and concluding paragraphs. I still

struggle with writing a conclusion sentence at the end of a paragraph. I have always had trouble

summarizing a paragraph using different sentences that I used in the paragraph. From when I

started writing I have always struggled with writing conclusions. In my Act 1 essay, my final
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conclusion paragraph was choppy and I could have summarized the essay in a better and more

smooth way. Through looking through my old writing and learning more skills I can further

improve my writing skills through senior year and on. Writing is a very important skill to have,

as it is needed in college, to get some jobs, etc. I used to hate writing because I wasn't so good at

it, and I didnt want to put in the effort to get better at it. But throughout this year and especially

this semester I have enjoyed writing more, and I now think of it as a challenge.

My goals for the rest of high school are to improve my grades and get better at German,

math, and English. These have been some of my favorite classes this year. This year I was really

trying to focus on my grades, but I realized that they aren't everything. I realized that it is about

what you learn and what you get out of it. Although I want to get better grades, I also have to

make sure that I am really focusing on learning the subject instead of just stressing about the

grades. In past years, I didn't really care about school like I do now. I stressed over my grades a

lot, but I took action. This year has been completely different, as I have asked for help when I

need it. I saw that the skills I learned in English class this year helped me in other classes.

Towards the end of semester two when I was writing my essay for history, I found it to be easier

than expected. I went into it with a lot more confidence than I had with most of my other essays.

I also ended up doing decently on the essay which proved to me that I had learned a lot in

English class. I would say overall the thing I will remember the most about junior literature

would be writing the Gatsby essay. I remember going to Mr. Smith and getting help with it,

which was very beneficial. I got better at skills such as quote integrations, analysis, synthesis,

etc. It also made me a lot more independent, as I could write without needing help at this point. I

remember how hard writing an essay was for me towards the beginning of the school year. I

could never think of ideas to write, and I barely knew how to write them down correctly. But this
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all did change when I put effort into asking for help. I can remember this as the beginning of my

writing journey.