Progressions through writing

This year, I entered 9^th grade not knowing how much writing we had to do as freshman. Then, reality hit! We had a few writing assignments in the beginning of the year. Which were nothing like the papers we had written in 8^th grade. But, it is high school, and we go to college prep. So what’s not to be expected?

The first assignment we had was a report on the novel Nation. I was quick to admit that it was my least favorite book in the summer reading books that I had read! It was a difficult essay to write, and my skills were definitely lacking in support, and fluency. As the year progressed, we began to write a literacy narrative essay. This time, it was neither the support nor the fluency, but instead organization. I noticed that as I got better at some skills, the other skills that needed tuning did not get the attention they needed.

Organization still needed tuning as the comments from the teacher came back from the 3^rd essay I wrote. She commented “but there is room to grow in terms of ideas, organization, and voice.” I had gotten past fluency, and support. Meanwhile I am learning a lot of ways to help get the skills to fix problems with those traits of good writing. The work just keeps getting harder and harder though! The profile assignment was the 3^rd essay, and I really saw some growth from the last paper, and the profile. Although what helped is I knew the person very well, so I didn’t have to do any digging for answers or more information. The next paper is all about transitions, NO ORGANIZATION!

I wrote an essay about poems. And it was fantastic except for the part where transitions come into play. As I said earlier once I fix problems, more occur, which is very frustrating about being a writer. You try your best on a piece of writing and address the areas of concern, but then only to be let down with more issues. Between every paragraph there was a note that read “weak transition”, and as soon as I reread the essay I noticed it as well! So sometimes just rereading things more than once, and having others look at it to see what they think, is more helpful than getting a paper back that says weak transition 5 times in one paper.

Overall, I can say that I have learned a lot from this year’s writing experience. It has not been easy, but it has pushed me out of my comfort zone for writing papers, and analyzing short stories. The 6 traits of good writing are still going to be in writing from here on out so I will always remember the traits. Also, as I noticed the other day, in the 1^st quarter I had trouble writing a page that was double spaced. Now I can write 2 pages double spaced really easily!

In the ongoing years I hope to exceed the limitations of writing, and become really good so that I can be prepared to go to a liberal arts college. This year was a HUGE step up from last year, but I believe that it was a good change, and that the ongoing writing projects, and one after the other papers, really does help you to become a stronger writer and a faster typer. I have seen major growth in my writing throughout the year.