Writing WrAP-Up Reflection

           My writing in English this year was less than what I hoped for.  I’m not sure if I expected to just get an A+ on every paper, but I certainly was not anticipating some of the negative feedback that I received. The causes of this dilemma are my own fault. My writing throughout the year has been shown to be undeveloped and not up to par with what it should be at this grade level. I believe I learned a thing or two this year by receiving heavy constructive criticism. Each time I turned in a paper I was thinking, “Man, I wrote well on this! This is an A paper for sure!” And each time, I was wrong. I plan to use the feedback I received to help me with my writing in the future.

            One of our first projects as a class was writing a literacy narrative essay. Going into this, I had no idea what a literacy narrative was and was diffident if I could even complete it. I thought I did poorly in my writing as I turned it in even though all I acquired from my peers was positive comments on it. As it turns out, that ended up being my best paper. I couldn’t help but wonder why this paper, the one that I assumed was deficient, was favorable in the eyes of my teacher. As we wrote other papers, I compared them with the literacy narrative and noticed that it was the only paper that I included original material in; the only essay I wrote that subsumed of developed writing, good sentence fluency, and near-perfect conventions.

            Another essay we completed, a profile, also had me uncertain, as well as every other paper we completed. I personally thought that I stuck to the assignment well, had good organization, and decent ideas. On this essay, I don’t believe we exchanged it with peers for assessment. The feedback I attained for this essay went along with my own. I thought the voice was too technical and unengaged with the reader. My teacher agreed. I believe if I had a chance to revise the profile I could make the voice more fluent and less drab-sounding than I did before. Other feedback I received on the profile included grammatical errors and things that were not supposed to be done in a profile such as inferring or guessing for the reader.

            Concerning the essays I wrote in general, I always acquired almost complete positive feedback from peers, but when I submitted the paper, I received negative feedback from my teacher. On the WrAP test that our class completed, I was informed that my support was inadequate. In other categories I did decently but my teacher informed me that my paper was probably not long enough for me to display my ideas as well as I could have. These assessments of my writing have shown me what needs to be done to improve.

            Proofreading my work after I complete it would be a valuable step to ameliorate my writing. I neglected to proofread in almost all of my essays, but I plan to initiate that starting with this paper. Feedback that I gave myself, combined with that of my teacher, included how my writing did not appear to be at the level it should. Although my writing was undeveloped I believe I interpreted the rhetorical situation accurately in all of the essays I completed. Another asset that I believe will help me in my writing is reading it as if I were the audience. This could assist in it being more appealing to that audience and therefore making it more effective.

            I will have to evaluate an efficient way to incorporate these boons into my essays in the future. Completing my essays timely should aid with that. Although we usually get sufficient time to complete our essays thoroughly, not everyone utilizes the time wisely. I fall into that category and am usually that person who does his essay the day before it is to be submitted, which is not a commendable habit.

            Never before have I had my writing assessed as thoroughly and complete as this year. It isn’t always a pleasant thought, but I am cognizant that it is to help me develop my writing to where I want and where it needs to be. I have had to write with much detail and precision this year which I know will allow for revised writing in the future. With much determination do I set out to accomplish these goals and use the knowledge of writing I have acquired from my teacher, peers, and others to advance successfully.