A large part of academics is reading, writing, researching, grammar and vocabulary. To become successful in life, you must have a decent ability in these areas. It is best to make goals for a year, and try to master these goals. For freshman year, I made many academic goals that I hoped to beat. Some of these goals I mastered, some I failed. Here is a synopsis of my freshman year goals, that I have meet and not, and my goals for the next year.
To describe myself, I would say I am a fairly good reader. I enjoy reading when I have a good book, and when I do I could read for hours endlessly. Although, during the school year, I read very little. I am too busy with school work, and by the time I finish I feel like resting, not reading. Even though I know I enjoy reading when I do, it just did not seem like the fun thing to do after a long day. This changed when we began the “All You Can Read Buffet”. Although I did not meet the goals I made at the beginning of the year for reading four to five difficult books a month, I met the revised goals I had made after New Years; I read about two books a month. Mostly because I needed to, but I also did enjoy reading again once I had started.
As far as I would describe myself as a writer, I would say I am a mediocre writer. I only enjoy creative writing where I could write about anything I can think up. I can imagine great characters and I love writing about them in immense detail. Of course, most of the work I did in school this year were quotation analysis, persuasive essays, and analytical essays. These I do not enjoy and are quite difficult for me. This is because I can always see what I want to say in my head, but I have a hard time getting it down on paper. Sadly, my difficulty with forming my ideas did not get better over the past school year. Due to the fact that this year I was not assigned any creative writing, I did not meet my goals for improving upon these writing skills, or even wrote any stories. However, I believe that my grammar and vocabulary has improved. I have used far more inspired words in my most recent pieces of writing, including words like bellicose and superfluous. My grammar has also improved, and I believe I have had less sentence fragments and run-ons in my work. I am very happy about this, as better grammar and vocabulary happened to be one of the things I hoped to improve this past year.
Another thing I am proud to have improved on is my research skills. I now know what to look for in a reliable resource. Although I pretty much understood what a reliable source was before this year, in doing the I-Search project, I learned much more. Previous to this project, I realize that information like references and the types of website (e.g. .edu, .com, .org) was important in judging the legitimacy of a website. By far the most important aspect of researching I learned was how to form a works cited piece to MLA standards. I previously had no idea how to do this, and I am glad to have learned this skill that will help me as long as I am writing. Although improving on my research skills was not one of my goals for this year, I am happy to have learned what I have.
Even though I have learned a lot this year, there are still many things I would like to improve on. I would particularly enjoy reading more, which is something I need to remember to do. For next year, my goal will be to read far more often; hopefully, about three or four books a month. I still could afford to make great strides in my grammar; even with all that I have learned my grammar is still spotty. I still need to improve my spelling, although I do not see my poor ability getting better any time soon. For some reason, correct spelling has always been a large challenge for me, no matter how hard I try to fix it. Most of all, I would love to improve my writing habits. I need to find how to focus best on my writing and get my ideas on the paper. This will be my biggest challenge next year.
Overall, I believe I put my best effort into my academics this year. I worked very hard on all my work and I think it paid off. Although I think I improved in a lot of my work, the best thing I did this year, by far, is my I-Search. It just turned out so much better than I expected, with few grammar mistakes and well-developed subsections. I really put my heart and soul into this paper, and it paid off, showcasing the best of my ability. What helped me out so much was taking good notes as I researched, so essentially all I had to do was put the notes together as my final paper. Some other strategies that worked for me was to get all my work done at school, so I had no homework. This worked because I can never focus on work at home. Also, writing different parts of my writing separately and then putting the whole paper together also helped; that way I could focus solely on that one piece of writing. What did not seem to work, happened to be saving work till that last minute and stressing out about the little imperfections in my work.
In conclusion, I would say I am a overall a good reader and a decent writer. I put my best effort forward and over the course of this year, I have begun reading a little more and I have improved in my grammar and vocabulary. I have also learned how to correctly site the reliable websites I have found in a standard works cited paper. However, I would like to progress on my spelling ability, further improve my grammar, read more, and focus better on my writing. Hopefully next year I will learn as much as I did last year.
Here are five examples of improvements, and lack of, in my writing over the last school year. (You can read the pieces of writing by clicking on the links at the left of the page)
I-Search Part 2 & 3:
I chose this piece, mainly because I put so much effort into it, but also because I think it shows my improvement in a few areas of writing and research. Before this paper I had no idea how to cite my sources in my research presentation portion of the paper, and I learned and perfected this in my I-Search. I also learned how to properly cite my entire paper to MLA standards. Although, by far, the improvement I am most proud of in this writing is my grammar. For once, there were practically no grammar mistakes in my writing. This is a great improvement on my part, as using proper grammar has been the most difficult thing for me as long as I have been writing. I am very proud of my I-Search.
Vignettes:
On the contrary, my vignette collection is a perfect example of writing that was difficult for me. From my word choice, to my grammar, to the plot line, the writing is of poor quality. While writing these stories, I had great ideas in my head. These were perfect stories in flawless writing that I failed to get on paper. For some reason I could not materialize my ideas. I can not explain it, I just had a horrible writers block that ended in a poorly written collection of short stories
Romeo & Juliet Analytical Essay:
I chose this piece, not I am not a fan of my analytical arguments, but because I had fairly good grammar and vocabulary throughout the essay. For this essay, I have finally begun proofreading my work before I graded it and actively using a thesaurus in my writing. As if proofread my work, I was shocked to realize how many grammar mistakes I had to fix, and how many grammar mistakes I must have missed in previous writings. From now on, I am proofreading all my work! Also, I am very happy with my word choice, for using words like bellicose, superfluous, and antagonistic. I believe it helped my writing greatly and I plan on expanding my vocabulary in all future works.
I-Search Part 1 & 2:
I do not really know what to say about this piece of writing. First of all, I do not like what I wrote, and second of all, it was very difficult to write. I have always had a hard time writing about myself and have never liked the final product. I am not sure what it is about writing about myself that I hate, maybe it is just the fact that I am a private person and do not enjoy sharing my thoughts. Whatever it is, this particular piece of writing was painful to do, but I think it came out a lot better than most. I believe it is because I had fairly good grammar and spelling.
The House on Mango Street Analytical Essay:
My last piece of writing I chose to show how goals change overtime. When I first wrote my House on Mango Street essay, I thought it was fairly good. At the time, I thought my grammar was great, my vocabulary was good, and the actual substance of the work was excellent. However, looking back, this essay can not compare to what I feel I can do now. Today, I think my grammar, vocabulary, and the actual substance of my writing is far better. I think the essay shows my growth by comparing it to what I can do now.
Dear Reader,
A large part of academics is reading, writing, researching, grammar and vocabulary. To become successful in life, you must have a decent ability in these areas. It is best to make goals for a year, and try to master these goals. For freshman year, I made many academic goals that I hoped to beat. Some of these goals I mastered, some I failed. Here is a synopsis of my freshman year goals, that I have meet and not, and my goals for the next year.
To describe myself, I would say I am a fairly good reader. I enjoy reading when I have a good book, and when I do I could read for hours endlessly. Although, during the school year, I read very little. I am too busy with school work, and by the time I finish I feel like resting, not reading. Even though I know I enjoy reading when I do, it just did not seem like the fun thing to do after a long day. This changed when we began the “All You Can Read Buffet”. Although I did not meet the goals I made at the beginning of the year for reading four to five difficult books a month, I met the revised goals I had made after New Years; I read about two books a month. Mostly because I needed to, but I also did enjoy reading again once I had started.
As far as I would describe myself as a writer, I would say I am a mediocre writer. I only enjoy creative writing where I could write about anything I can think up. I can imagine great characters and I love writing about them in immense detail. Of course, most of the work I did in school this year were quotation analysis, persuasive essays, and analytical essays. These I do not enjoy and are quite difficult for me. This is because I can always see what I want to say in my head, but I have a hard time getting it down on paper. Sadly, my difficulty with forming my ideas did not get better over the past school year. Due to the fact that this year I was not assigned any creative writing, I did not meet my goals for improving upon these writing skills, or even wrote any stories. However, I believe that my grammar and vocabulary has improved. I have used far more inspired words in my most recent pieces of writing, including words like bellicose and superfluous. My grammar has also improved, and I believe I have had less sentence fragments and run-ons in my work. I am very happy about this, as better grammar and vocabulary happened to be one of the things I hoped to improve this past year.
Another thing I am proud to have improved on is my research skills. I now know what to look for in a reliable resource. Although I pretty much understood what a reliable source was before this year, in doing the I-Search project, I learned much more. Previous to this project, I realize that information like references and the types of website (e.g. .edu, .com, .org) was important in judging the legitimacy of a website. By far the most important aspect of researching I learned was how to form a works cited piece to MLA standards. I previously had no idea how to do this, and I am glad to have learned this skill that will help me as long as I am writing. Although improving on my research skills was not one of my goals for this year, I am happy to have learned what I have.
Even though I have learned a lot this year, there are still many things I would like to improve on. I would particularly enjoy reading more, which is something I need to remember to do. For next year, my goal will be to read far more often; hopefully, about three or four books a month. I still could afford to make great strides in my grammar; even with all that I have learned my grammar is still spotty. I still need to improve my spelling, although I do not see my poor ability getting better any time soon. For some reason, correct spelling has always been a large challenge for me, no matter how hard I try to fix it. Most of all, I would love to improve my writing habits. I need to find how to focus best on my writing and get my ideas on the paper. This will be my biggest challenge next year.
Overall, I believe I put my best effort into my academics this year. I worked very hard on all my work and I think it paid off. Although I think I improved in a lot of my work, the best thing I did this year, by far, is my I-Search. It just turned out so much better than I expected, with few grammar mistakes and well-developed subsections. I really put my heart and soul into this paper, and it paid off, showcasing the best of my ability. What helped me out so much was taking good notes as I researched, so essentially all I had to do was put the notes together as my final paper. Some other strategies that worked for me was to get all my work done at school, so I had no homework. This worked because I can never focus on work at home. Also, writing different parts of my writing separately and then putting the whole paper together also helped; that way I could focus solely on that one piece of writing. What did not seem to work, happened to be saving work till that last minute and stressing out about the little imperfections in my work.
In conclusion, I would say I am a overall a good reader and a decent writer. I put my best effort forward and over the course of this year, I have begun reading a little more and I have improved in my grammar and vocabulary. I have also learned how to correctly site the reliable websites I have found in a standard works cited paper. However, I would like to progress on my spelling ability, further improve my grammar, read more, and focus better on my writing. Hopefully next year I will learn as much as I did last year.
Here are five examples of improvements, and lack of, in my writing over the last school year. (You can read the pieces of writing by clicking on the links at the left of the page)
I-Search Part 2 & 3:
I chose this piece, mainly because I put so much effort into it, but also because I think it shows my improvement in a few areas of writing and research. Before this paper I had no idea how to cite my sources in my research presentation portion of the paper, and I learned and perfected this in my I-Search. I also learned how to properly cite my entire paper to MLA standards. Although, by far, the improvement I am most proud of in this writing is my grammar. For once, there were practically no grammar mistakes in my writing. This is a great improvement on my part, as using proper grammar has been the most difficult thing for me as long as I have been writing. I am very proud of my I-Search.
Vignettes:
On the contrary, my vignette collection is a perfect example of writing that was difficult for me. From my word choice, to my grammar, to the plot line, the writing is of poor quality. While writing these stories, I had great ideas in my head. These were perfect stories in flawless writing that I failed to get on paper. For some reason I could not materialize my ideas. I can not explain it, I just had a horrible writers block that ended in a poorly written collection of short stories
Romeo & Juliet Analytical Essay:
I chose this piece, not I am not a fan of my analytical arguments, but because I had fairly good grammar and vocabulary throughout the essay. For this essay, I have finally begun proofreading my work before I graded it and actively using a thesaurus in my writing. As if proofread my work, I was shocked to realize how many grammar mistakes I had to fix, and how many grammar mistakes I must have missed in previous writings. From now on, I am proofreading all my work! Also, I am very happy with my word choice, for using words like bellicose, superfluous, and antagonistic. I believe it helped my writing greatly and I plan on expanding my vocabulary in all future works.
I-Search Part 1 & 2:
I do not really know what to say about this piece of writing. First of all, I do not like what I wrote, and second of all, it was very difficult to write. I have always had a hard time writing about myself and have never liked the final product. I am not sure what it is about writing about myself that I hate, maybe it is just the fact that I am a private person and do not enjoy sharing my thoughts. Whatever it is, this particular piece of writing was painful to do, but I think it came out a lot better than most. I believe it is because I had fairly good grammar and spelling.
The House on Mango Street Analytical Essay:
My last piece of writing I chose to show how goals change overtime. When I first wrote my House on Mango Street essay, I thought it was fairly good. At the time, I thought my grammar was great, my vocabulary was good, and the actual substance of the work was excellent. However, looking back, this essay can not compare to what I feel I can do now. Today, I think my grammar, vocabulary, and the actual substance of my writing is far better. I think the essay shows my growth by comparing it to what I can do now.