Savannah's English 1 Portfolio

I have no preferences when it comes to improving in writing in general. I feel like I have areas to improve in in all portions of writing, some more than others, but none the less, I have room for improvement. I really think that I will become a better writer as I get older, but this year in English has been extremely important to me becoming a better writer. I feel the this year in English is the most drastic writing improvement that I have eve had over the span of one year. I feel that if I had to set a writing goal for next year, it would be to be able to back up my claims and write a better opening and closing paragraph.

I find that when it comes to technical things in English, I have less errors. Things like sentence structure and word choice are what I find to be less challenging than others. I find that I have been immersed to such a wide variety of words that finding the perfect word in an scenario is very simple for me. I believe that my writing strengths include word choice, sentence fluency, and overall grammatical correctness. I find that throughout middle school English, things such as grammar, not big ideas of writing a paper, were taught more often. This is why things such as sentence structure come very easily to me. I feel like I had been very well prepared from middle school English when it comes to the more grammar-based aspects of writing an English paper. These aspects of writing are very important, but I feel that I have many ways in which I can improve in all aspects of writing.

I struggle when it comes to writing transitions, introductions, and conclusions. Although I believe that I have improved when it comes to these areas of writing, I feel that I still have room for improvement. I have trouble writing what some call the "fluff" of the English paper, which comes at the very beginning and the very end of the paper. I also find that I have trouble starting and finishing a paper in general, because i can't seem to find the suitable words to start and finish the paper. Although I feel that I have have improved in all areas on writing this year, these areas on the ones that still need the most work.

As writer, I think that I have drastically improved in many different aspects throughout the year. From word choice to sentence fluency to supporting a claim, I feel that with every paper and English assignment I get better with a lot of different things. I feel like things that we learned in class, going to the writing center, and just working on papers all helped me to become a better writer. Something that I feel that I have improved on the most is backing up my evidence, writing transitions, and doing more technical things like in text citations. When it comes to backing up my evidence prior to English in ninth grade, I wasn't very good at doing  it because all we had done in previous English classes all we had to do was back up a claim with evidence form a book or document, not actually use our own thoughts to support the claim. Being pushed in everyone paper for this class to use our own thoughts to back up our thesis statement is what I used as motivation to do so. I was n...

I am a writer who strives to have the perfect piece of writing that has no grammatical errors. Although technicalities are always a very important part of writing, I think that it is my strength. I am a writer who likes to use sentence structure as a vital part of the paper, mixing and matching the length and depth of each of my sentences. I also think that I am a writer who likes to use facts and evidence rather than backing those things up with my own description. I think that their is definitely room for improvement for me as a writer, and their always will be. Even though I can never be a perfect writer, I will always be the writer who strives to do their best and learns from their mistakes.

I've gone to the Writing Center twice so far this semester, and both visits have been very successful. The first time that I went second semester was to revise a DBQ essay for World History on the causes of the French Revolution. I found this visit to be very beneficial because the writing fellow that was assisting me introduced me to knew methods of revising my paper that I had not considered before. For example, she told me that I should read my paper out loud. When I did this with her, I realized that I had several errors in my paper that I had not noticed before. My second visit to the Writing Center this semester was today, where I got help with my revision of my literary analysis for Lord of the Flies. I found this visit to the Writing Center to be even more helpful this time. The writing fellow that worked with me this time helped me to solve a lot of the issues I was having with this paper and its revision. I also gained some general writing knowledge from this visit. For...