M.+Course+Reflection

This year I have learned many new and different things. Even though I am not the best at writing essay, I have tried my best this year and I believe I have gotten better at it. My essays are still not as powerful as I want them to be, but compared to last year I have gotten much better. When I write an essay, doing an outline makes it much faster to write the essay and it makes it easier for me to collect my thoughts. I have also been using commas more because I now understand, at least better than last year, about where to put those commas and apostrophes. Sometimes I still mess up, but that’s not a big deal as long I practice. The more I practice the better my work gets. My favorite piece of writing I did this year was my Persuasive research Essay because it was something I never did before. It may not have been perfect, but it was something **new** and I tried really hard to get it right. It took me a long time to understand the cite notations and where to put them, but when I finally finished it, I was quite proud of myself. Even though this was difficult I still enjoyed it, and it was nothing compared to the Narrative essay. I did not like the Narrative essay because I was not sure what to write and my story did not have an interesting plot. I was confused when I was writing it and was not sure if I was even doing it right. I was able to write five paragraphs but I am still not convinced that it makes any sense to me. Narrative writing is hard for me to do because I never know what to write down, but I am sure if I wrote it on lined paper, instead of the computer, it would have turned out worse. Having a portfolio on the computer is a lot easier than on paper in a folder, because you could lose the folder or lose the papers and never have a copy of them. Teenagers are not always reliable to take care of their own things, especially if it is on lose leaf paper. Computers can be accessed almost everywhere and they don’t need much taking care of as long as you save your work. On the computer the portfolio becomes organized and better to manage than on the paper. Besides, kids are more likely to be on the computer in this time period than any other time, and they would know how to edit their Wikispaces and make them more presentable. Not only that, but most kids have their own computer and can access it at any time. If I had to write a portfolio on separate pieces of paper, it would not look as nice as my Wikispace does. Anyway, thank you Mrs. Szymczak for teaching and helping me in English!