This year we have really focused on writing essays, or more specifically, persuasive essays. In the beginning of the year we completed our first writing piece called "A Week without Technology." This was an in class essay, and it wasn't for the grade. We had to write our opinion on having a day without technology, and I chose the side of having this day. We had not learned to write persuasive essays before, but this essay was only for progress and marking where we were. The essay was very difficult for me to write because I didn't know what to do and I had not learned about it. For that essay, I received decent grades. For example I got mostly 4's and some 3's which was decent.
Then as we progressed with the course, Ms. Lewis began introducing the concept of persuasive and argumentative essays. We began learning about how we can make our essays very convincing and organized at the same time. We learned that we must see both sides of the conflict, which I did not do in my first essay. I only chose one side, so I assumed I only show the positive things about that side. We also learned about word choice, and how we must use strong words in order to have a strong essay.
We then began writing our other persuasive essay which was about the conflict in Palestine. Israel and Palestine are fighting for land, and we had to choose a side to part with. I parted with the side of Palestine so I had to start researching about Palestine and its history. On the contrary, I didn't need to research for my other essay and I just wrote from my previous knowledge. As I continued researching about Palestine and Israel, I also was completing an outline that was peer checked and was also corrected by Ms. Lewis. We also did not do this with the other essay but rather started working and didn't brainstorm. After I completed the research I began writing my first draft. After the first draft, I got it peer checked and received feedback. I then completed a second draft then my final copy. We previously did not do this either and I didn't even think about doing it before. When I finally received my grade, I was very happy. I got mostly 5's and some 4's and my overall grade was a 91%. I was very happy with this because we were told that the highest grade was a 93% and the fact that I got a 91% was very exciting. I think to get this grade I really worked well with critical thinking because I came up with my own points and thought outside of the box.
Next time, I would like to spend more time with the actual essay. I spent more time with the research than writing the essay. If I had elaborated more on it then it could have been very good. Also I would've liked to schedule an appointment with Ms. Lewis to talk about the essay, so I know exactly what to do. I have done it last year, and it worked very well. We could discuss what she looks for in the essay and what I could change in my essay. It would've really benefitted.
Overall, I believe I made a lot of progress in my argumentative essays and I hope to do more in the future.
Dana,
ReplyDeleteGreat job with your blog post for humanities. I thought your paragraphs were extremely elaborated, and you included some good transitions to make the writing flow. At last, make sure to include a link to your actual essay because I am sure your parents would love to see them.