Final Writing Reflection

I was a much different writer at the beginning of the year, a much worse writer. One passage that describes this well is from the Creativity Argumentative Essay.

 "According to Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, who studied the Torrance Test, a test that measures creativity, the decline in creativity for children in kindergarten through sixth grade is the greatest amongst all age groups. Young children have long had the most creative minds in our society, yet soon this may not be so. Since children  have the most pliable minds, the class can instill in these students creativity, creating a strong base that will be difficult to break."

This shows my origin in that there is nearly a complete lack of tangible evidence. Anecdotal evidence is not nearly as strong as quantitative evidence, so using anecdotes weakened my argument. Additionally, I have very little analysis on why the plan for a class would work, other than basically saying, 'it will work because it will work.' This lack of depth in thought shows my struggles in expanding my argument to fully prove my thesis.

By the end of the year, my essays were much improved, from clearer theses, to stronger evidence and lengthier analysis. A passage that exemplifies this improvement is from the Environment Essay.

"Nearly all of the green vegetables eaten in the United States are grown within 'a few-hundred square miles of irrigated semi-desert in California,' (Source 6). Having such a large portion of the American food industry be produced in one small area opens us the food supply to many unnecessary risks. For example, if there is a long, extended drought in California, such as the one right now,  prices of products such as green beans or broccoli skyrocket. These unnecessary risks exist across the food landscape, and the right combination of events threaten to bring the whole system down, causing chaos throughout the United States."

In this passage, I used strong evidence that relates to my thesis, unlike my earlier writing. This sets up my essays for much more success than my earlier pieces. Also, my analysis has expanded to not only include the direct effects, but to include the larger, secondary effects of a food collapse and why that would be bad. This is a great departure from my earlier writing, where I only discussed the immediate effects of negative events, and not how they affect the surrounding world.

I learned a great deal about writing this year, from how to include evidence within the context of the piece to how to expand my analysis to discuss the whole thesis statement. My greatest challenge in writing this year was in fact expanding my analysis to discuss the bigger picture, and show how the evidence relates to the ultimate argument. I grew the most in choosing evidence that proves my thesis best. I am most proud of my environment essay, as it was my best scoring essay and I felt it exemplified all that I learned in writing this year.