31 May 2015
Dear Mrs. Pagani,
For my reflection letter I have chosen the Personal Statement, Racial Profiling, and Brave New World for my essays. For my process work, I have chosen Into the Wild Quotes Chart, School Lunch Proposal Outline and Bullying Outline Example. From this work, I will reflect on what I learned about writing topic sentences, citing sources, and writing relevant commentary and analysis. I will also address my strengths in writing a thesis and writing commentary. My weaknesses in grammar and in making a works cited page. I will address my academic essays, skills that I have learned, my weakness in grammar and works cited pages, and goals that I have for my writing skills.
The various process work throughout the year has impacted my writing in a profound way. In the School Lunch Proposal Outline helped me fill in the required parts of an essay. For example, I wrote that “Unhealthy school lunches can lead to many healthe effects. In order to fix the school lunch problem in America, schools must stop using unhealthy ingredients and finding healthier alternatives for our lunches.” for my thesis. By completing this process work I was able to figure out what needed to be in a thesis and was able to effectively create one. My second process work in this reflection is the Into the Wild Quotes Chart. This quote chart helped me organize my evidence. For example, I wrote that, “He had no axe, no bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass (Pg.6)” in one of my boxes. By doing this activity it helped me choose which quotes I wanted to use for my essay as well as providing me the page number in order to cite my sources. It also helped me come up with some form of commentary to work with by providing a commentary box beside the quotation boxes. My final process work is the Bullying Outline Example. By using this, I was able to write my evidence in many different ways. For instance, I wrote that “Tyler Clementi took his own life after being cyberbullied by a group of students led by his roommate.” This is a summary of an article. In my previous works, I have only used paraphrasing and quoting for my evidence. After completing this activity I was able to use summarizing as another tool to cite evidence effectively. Completing all these process works have helped me improve as a writer.
Over the course of this class I have improved in many aspects of writing an essay. My skills as a writer are much better now compared to when I first started this class. One of the skills that improved was providing meaningful commentary. In my Brave New World Essay, I commented on a quote about the Bokanovsky Process. In my essay I stated that “The World State believed that monogamy, parenthood, and romance are factors that contribute to social instability. Social instability is something that is not tolerated, so they did away with parents and replaced them with science and technology. The result was the Bokanovsky Process, a tool that allowed The World State to raise children how they saw fit. Free thinking and individuality are things that can lead to conflicts and conflicts of any kind are not tolerated in the World State.” This shows that I am able to proficiently interpret and explain a quote. It also contains a large amount of content compared to the evidence that I quoted. Another skill I improved on is integrating quotes. In the Brave New World Essay, I cited a quote from Huxley’s book. In order to show the the differences of our society and the World State I included the following integrated quote: Once The World State took control, social norms and interactions were changed in order to keep society stable. Promiscuity became more acceptable in The World State for they believed that “chastity means passion, chastity means neurasthenia. And passion and neurasthenia mean instability” (Huxley 161). The third skill I improved on is creating a good title. In my Racial Profiling Essay, I picked the title “Racial Profiling: Racism with a Badge”. The title netted me a B in the essay rubric and I felt that it was pretty creative. The fourth skill I improved on is MLA Format. In my Personal Statement, I included most of the MLA requirements. For my heading I put “Joe Follero, Mrs. Pagani ERWC Period 1, 25 September 2015” in that order and double spaced. I also included page numbers that included my last name, something I forgot to include in previous essays. The last skill I improved the most in is drawing conclusions. In my Brave New World Essay, I drew many conclusions about the World State and the future of our world. I said that “while our world is similar, it is far too different to become it. The World State did not come about through a slow transformation of social norms and technology. It was created through the eruption of strife and conflict that lead to the destruction of culture, religion and art. While there are many conflicts today, not many are large enough to affect our culture and society, and very few are fought to destroy what the culture and art of today”. While my overall skills as a writer improved, I felt that these were the ones that improved the most.
As a writer, I have many strengths that I wish to maintain and many weaknesses that I wish to improve upon. One of my strengths is the conclusion. I feel confident in my skills to sum up the entire essay in the paragraph and to create a full circle for my essay. Another one of my strengths is the thesis. I am able to explain the purpose of my essay clearly and provide an outline of the topics my essays will be covering. A weakness I wish to improve on is my punctuation. I have trouble figuring out when to use commas. Sometimes I use commas too much, sometimes, too little. Another weakness I have is grammar. I tend to use slang and informal speech in my essays. Sometimes, I use first or second person words in essays that shouldn’t have it. All writers have different weaknesses. These are the ones I have that stand out the most.
When I first started this class I did not grasp the concept of MLA Format. After I completed my Racial Profiling essay, I can now format my work properly. In my Personal Statement, Mrs. Pagani circled my margins, indicating that it was out of order and not in proper MLA formatting. After this incident, I was able to understand how to format essays in MLA Format. I also could not form a good concluding sentence well. I usually did not include it in most of essays because I did not know what to write.
I believe I still need to work on my grammar and punctuation. Most, if not all, my essay rubrics have comma use and run ons circled. I need to brush up on my grammar and relearn how to use commas. I also need to work more on my works cited page. I don’t know the exact format of it and instead use a citing page like easybib. Mrs.Pagani Has circled many mistakes from my works cited pages from multiple essays. Some mistakes are alphabetizing, margins and content order.
The evidence citing and critical analysis of quotes will help me in science classes. It will allow me to interpret essays and data better and will also allow me to draw my own conclusions based on the information given to me. Based on what I have heard from people who are or were in college, this class will prove to be very useful. I will now take my writing more seriously and not put it off until the last minute. I will also know how to properly format an essay in MLA style. After taking this class, I feel that I am ready to start writing at a college level.
Sincerely,
Joe Follero
Dear Mrs. Pagani,
For my reflection letter I have chosen the Personal Statement, Racial Profiling, and Brave New World for my essays. For my process work, I have chosen Into the Wild Quotes Chart, School Lunch Proposal Outline and Bullying Outline Example. From this work, I will reflect on what I learned about writing topic sentences, citing sources, and writing relevant commentary and analysis. I will also address my strengths in writing a thesis and writing commentary. My weaknesses in grammar and in making a works cited page. I will address my academic essays, skills that I have learned, my weakness in grammar and works cited pages, and goals that I have for my writing skills.
The various process work throughout the year has impacted my writing in a profound way. In the School Lunch Proposal Outline helped me fill in the required parts of an essay. For example, I wrote that “Unhealthy school lunches can lead to many healthe effects. In order to fix the school lunch problem in America, schools must stop using unhealthy ingredients and finding healthier alternatives for our lunches.” for my thesis. By completing this process work I was able to figure out what needed to be in a thesis and was able to effectively create one. My second process work in this reflection is the Into the Wild Quotes Chart. This quote chart helped me organize my evidence. For example, I wrote that, “He had no axe, no bug dope, no snowshoes, no compass (Pg.6)” in one of my boxes. By doing this activity it helped me choose which quotes I wanted to use for my essay as well as providing me the page number in order to cite my sources. It also helped me come up with some form of commentary to work with by providing a commentary box beside the quotation boxes. My final process work is the Bullying Outline Example. By using this, I was able to write my evidence in many different ways. For instance, I wrote that “Tyler Clementi took his own life after being cyberbullied by a group of students led by his roommate.” This is a summary of an article. In my previous works, I have only used paraphrasing and quoting for my evidence. After completing this activity I was able to use summarizing as another tool to cite evidence effectively. Completing all these process works have helped me improve as a writer.
Over the course of this class I have improved in many aspects of writing an essay. My skills as a writer are much better now compared to when I first started this class. One of the skills that improved was providing meaningful commentary. In my Brave New World Essay, I commented on a quote about the Bokanovsky Process. In my essay I stated that “The World State believed that monogamy, parenthood, and romance are factors that contribute to social instability. Social instability is something that is not tolerated, so they did away with parents and replaced them with science and technology. The result was the Bokanovsky Process, a tool that allowed The World State to raise children how they saw fit. Free thinking and individuality are things that can lead to conflicts and conflicts of any kind are not tolerated in the World State.” This shows that I am able to proficiently interpret and explain a quote. It also contains a large amount of content compared to the evidence that I quoted. Another skill I improved on is integrating quotes. In the Brave New World Essay, I cited a quote from Huxley’s book. In order to show the the differences of our society and the World State I included the following integrated quote: Once The World State took control, social norms and interactions were changed in order to keep society stable. Promiscuity became more acceptable in The World State for they believed that “chastity means passion, chastity means neurasthenia. And passion and neurasthenia mean instability” (Huxley 161). The third skill I improved on is creating a good title. In my Racial Profiling Essay, I picked the title “Racial Profiling: Racism with a Badge”. The title netted me a B in the essay rubric and I felt that it was pretty creative. The fourth skill I improved on is MLA Format. In my Personal Statement, I included most of the MLA requirements. For my heading I put “Joe Follero, Mrs. Pagani ERWC Period 1, 25 September 2015” in that order and double spaced. I also included page numbers that included my last name, something I forgot to include in previous essays. The last skill I improved the most in is drawing conclusions. In my Brave New World Essay, I drew many conclusions about the World State and the future of our world. I said that “while our world is similar, it is far too different to become it. The World State did not come about through a slow transformation of social norms and technology. It was created through the eruption of strife and conflict that lead to the destruction of culture, religion and art. While there are many conflicts today, not many are large enough to affect our culture and society, and very few are fought to destroy what the culture and art of today”. While my overall skills as a writer improved, I felt that these were the ones that improved the most.
As a writer, I have many strengths that I wish to maintain and many weaknesses that I wish to improve upon. One of my strengths is the conclusion. I feel confident in my skills to sum up the entire essay in the paragraph and to create a full circle for my essay. Another one of my strengths is the thesis. I am able to explain the purpose of my essay clearly and provide an outline of the topics my essays will be covering. A weakness I wish to improve on is my punctuation. I have trouble figuring out when to use commas. Sometimes I use commas too much, sometimes, too little. Another weakness I have is grammar. I tend to use slang and informal speech in my essays. Sometimes, I use first or second person words in essays that shouldn’t have it. All writers have different weaknesses. These are the ones I have that stand out the most.
When I first started this class I did not grasp the concept of MLA Format. After I completed my Racial Profiling essay, I can now format my work properly. In my Personal Statement, Mrs. Pagani circled my margins, indicating that it was out of order and not in proper MLA formatting. After this incident, I was able to understand how to format essays in MLA Format. I also could not form a good concluding sentence well. I usually did not include it in most of essays because I did not know what to write.
I believe I still need to work on my grammar and punctuation. Most, if not all, my essay rubrics have comma use and run ons circled. I need to brush up on my grammar and relearn how to use commas. I also need to work more on my works cited page. I don’t know the exact format of it and instead use a citing page like easybib. Mrs.Pagani Has circled many mistakes from my works cited pages from multiple essays. Some mistakes are alphabetizing, margins and content order.
The evidence citing and critical analysis of quotes will help me in science classes. It will allow me to interpret essays and data better and will also allow me to draw my own conclusions based on the information given to me. Based on what I have heard from people who are or were in college, this class will prove to be very useful. I will now take my writing more seriously and not put it off until the last minute. I will also know how to properly format an essay in MLA style. After taking this class, I feel that I am ready to start writing at a college level.
Sincerely,
Joe Follero