I have became a better writer over the year. I have struggled with many things over the semester and some things came naturally or was easy. I know how to improve my writing skills and become a better writer. I think not having confidence in my writing also makes me not try as hard as I can also because writing isn’t really my best subject so this course and the assignments helped me gain my confidence.  All the assignments helped me become a better writer because they all were different and each of them showed a weakness and something that need to be worked on. Some assignments showed some things that came naturally. This course and all the assignments has made me a better writer than I was and a better student, and I also know what to work on as a writer and student.

One thing that I struggled with was commitment. Throughout the semester and for every assignment, I made no commitment at all for the assignments. My grades sometimes reflected that because I wasn’t making the commitment that should have and the commitment needed for the assignments. I learned to make commitments on anything I have and not to just wait until the last minute. This will not only make me a better writer, but also a better student.

Another thing I struggled with a lot was digging deeper. I found myself repeating statements and things that was already stated earlier in the essay. I also couldn’t expand my thoughts about certain topics or for a certain assignment which made everything harder and not knowing what to write about. Everything ties together because not making a commitment or doing the assignments at the last minute doesn’t give me enough time to dig deeper. Digging deeper would help a lot because not only did I repeat some things, but also I didn’t even meet some length requirements. I have to make a commitment first so I could dig deeper.

One of the modes of writing we did that I struggled the worst one was the analysis assignment. I struggled with the analysis essay because I was repeating things and summarizing things when the assignment was for you to analyze. Even though I struggled with this assignment, this was my favorite assignment to do. I think it was my favorite assignment because I had to use a video and some writing techniques like pathos, logos, kairos, and ethos to complete the assignment. The analysis assignment was very fun to do. It was about an 11-year old girl that gets hit by a stray bullet. This was the hardest assignment out of all the assignment to me because I kept summarizing and when I was told I was summarizing, I tried not to and that caused repetition. I discovered writing this analysis paper that if I make a commitment and try harder everything would have been easier and the assignment would have been easier and more. If I make a commitment and dig deeper, I would be a better writer than I am.

A thing that I was good at while doing the argument assignment was opposing viewpoints. I think I didn’t struggle with this because I only had to write about the opposite of what I was writing about. My argument was that hip hop doesn’t belong to any race, age, or gender. I didn’t have to dig deep about the opposing viewpoint which made it easier. Opposing a viewpoint on something you are arguing about is really easy anyway because it is just the opposite of your argument. When I did the argument assignment, I struggled with digging deeper and repetition because I didn’t make a commitment but when it came to opposing the viewpoint of my argument, it came easily. I think opposing a viewpoint for anything is the easiest thing to do because it is the opposite of the argument.

One thing that helped me with all the assignments was research. When I say research, I mean peer review or student-teacher conference. The peer review research helped me a lot because I was able to see an example of what we were suppose to do because most likely I was confused or I forgot, and the peer review research also helped me because I was able to get feedback from my classmates on what needed to be changed and fixed and their opinion on the whole paper itself. The student-teacher conference research helped me because I got feedback from my teacher and she’s the person that is grading the paper. The research itself helped a lot because I knew I didn’t try my best on the draft because I didn’t make an commitment doing the assignment, and I needed some helpful feedback from someone. The research helped me so much throughout the semester.

I have to work on making commitments for my assignments, so I can dig deeper in the essay. If I make a commitment and dig deeper, then there will be no repetition and I won’t struggle as bad as I did over the semester with the assignments. I do think that I improved as writer because I realized mistakes and learned from them. I gained some confidence in my writing over the semester because I came up with good topics or good points which made me try harder. This course has helped me a lot with my writing in many ways. On some assignments, I would think I would have gotten a bad grade but I actually got a good grade and that also made me gain confidence in my writing. I learned a lot over the semester and will bring it along with me as I continue my college career.