Writing Growth
Semester 1: Personal Writing Goals
When I had finished my conference with Ashley about my Literary Analysis essay, I created a list of writing goals that I plan on showcasing my growth in throughout the semester.
1. For my first writing goal, I am working on developing a clear and concise thesis that can be referenced easily throughout the entirety on my essay. As I started working on articulating this into my essay I changed the thesis of my essay starting from, "Henry David Thoreau sets the perfect example of individualism because he does not conform to society and is viewed as untouchable. Thoreau does not give in to the fact that he is the only one who has refused to pay his taxes and he has created this sense of individualism that he believes everyone should live by." I then started to think about my thesis being more specific and more relatable to the essay as a whole. I created a thesis that allowed me to keep most of the context in my essay without changing the meaning. My new thesis is, "Henry David Thoreau has articulated a the perfect example of self reliance through his genuine lifestyle, as he does not conform to society's injustice and has been viewed as an untouchable figure in history." I am very pleased with my new thesis and I believe that it relates to the purpose of the whole essay.
2.I plan on developing my writing in a more professional way that excludes extensive unnecessary word use. In the first draft of my literary analysis essay I used a lot of words that were pointless to the structure of my sentences. In the first draft for example I wrote, "The idea of being polluted by advice is a very scary thing." I felt that in particular this sentence was very boring and made almost no sense. I used the word "very" numerous times throughout my essay and I found it to be quite misled in the entirety of my essay. I decided to make sentences like that more meaningful to the essay as, I re wrote,
"This idea of being polluted by unjustly advice is plain irritable concept." The new sentence that I has created related back to my thesis and was also more concise. i plan on using this skill in future essays as I articulate clear sentences.
"This idea of being polluted by unjustly advice is plain irritable concept." The new sentence that I has created related back to my thesis and was also more concise. i plan on using this skill in future essays as I articulate clear sentences.
3. For the third refinement that I made on my essay, I decided to make a change in the way i transitioned my sentences into evidence backing my statement up. The first example of how I did a poor job of transitioning is when I stated, Henry David Thoreau says, “...We’ve got a president who went and boomed up a war all by himself- with no help from the congress and less help from me”(11). I Made a quick change on this line by adding a little bit of background information and emotion. I creatively did this by explaining, Henry David Thoreau expresses his displeasure with the government by stating... I Believe that transitions like this are needed to provide the reader with emotional and persuasive explanation. I think its also important that I continue to use this throughout the course of my junior year and so on.