In humanities we have written two essays.
One essay on the book, The Alchemist and the other on Julius Caesar by Shakespeare.
Ideas and Content
over the course of 8th grade I have learnt much about writing. Although I had plenty of time to construct my Alchemist essay, I did not have the technique that I had in the Julius Caesar essay. In my Julius Caesar essay, my writing makes sense so the topic is much clearer and I stay focused on that topic, not rambling on into other topics. Also, I think that my Julius Caesar essay displays my improvement in choosing quotes that relate to the topic and enhances the readers understanding of the message I am trying to get across. My writing makes sense more in the way that I don't repeat my self as much as I did in my Alchemist essay. In my Alchemist essay, I did not choose quotes that backed up my reasoning and they did not really add to the main idea of the essay, they were there just to be..there. However, I think I point that I did well in my Alchemist essay was adding details that made my writing more interesting, and fun to read. In terms of Ideas and Content I would say that my Julius Caesar is much more advanced and developed then my Alchemist essay.
Organization.
Again, my Julius Caesar organization was better then my Alchemist essay.
The organization of the Alchemist essay was all over the place. I kept repeating my self and would sometimes ramble off and lose the main idea that I was trying to get across.
I think that the time period might have something to do with this.
For the Julius Caesar essay, I only had 80 minutes of writing. Therefor I did not have time to go into greater detail, and ramble off the main topic of the essay.
For both essays however, I gave good leads to grab the readers attention, both were quotes from the books that gave the reader an idea of what the essay would be about but was also interesting enough to make the reader keep on reading.
In the subject of transition sentences, my alchemist essays are much better, because I had time to revise my essay and improve my transition sentences and topic sentences for my body paragraphs.
Personal Growth
I think I have grown as a writer in ways such as the techniques I have learnt in 8th grade.
I now know how to organize my writing better and how to link quotes to support evidence and add to the message of the essay. I have also grown in other ways in my writing such as being able to firmly state my reasons and put in words that create mood.
These techniques were not used in my Julius Caesar essay because of the time strain and that they were not needed in this particular piece of writing.
SLR's
A SLR I use when crafting an essay would be Learn Enthusiastically.
My reasoning is that when you are writing an Essay you have to revise, re-do it and be motivated enough to accept constructive criticism from teachers to strive for your best.Also, being enthusiastic enough to go to your teachers to get help, even if it is in your free time if you do this you not only will be able to improve your writing, but also get the best grade you can get because you cared enough about your work to come in to improve your writing.
