Reflection Essay

When I first got accepted into Stuyvesant High School, I heard countless of rumors stating: “Oh the workload is terrible”, “The competition is so fierce” or “Out of schoolwork, extracurriculars, or sleep: you can only pick two.” I found it hard to let it faze me, since I graduated from one of the most prestigious middle schools. However, the rumors transformed into reality when I stepped into Mr. Nieves’ Freshman Composition Class. The workload at the beginning of the year was brutal, coupled with assignments from other core classes that seem unaware of the workload of other teachers. Reading assignments were a regular, and there were journal entries and occasional quizzes to keep us in line. What made it bearable was the friends I made in that class; everyone had their own opinion about the topic we were talking about, and listening to other perspectives really broadened my horizon and enriched my learning experience in Stuy. Another thing that this class has taught me is the importance of time management, a skill that I will carry on for the rest of my high school career and life. When I choose to sign up for Mr. Nieves’ AP American Literature class in my Junior Year, I was hoping to relive the discussion-based lesson plans and meet more outstanding peers. I was not disappointed, to say the least, reflecting through all the experiences at the end of the course. The lesson plans he laid out for us were an interesting mix between small lectures and class output, and what I

By writing about the uncommon standpoint, it becomes easier and more interesting to write about the subject. The next step to effective writing is learning how to write abstractly as opposed to concrete writing. By writing abstractly the author is writing in thought, and with no physical or concrete existence; if the writer chooses to do this it could make their writing more stimulating. The next tool is getting rid of the obvious statements and transforming the statements into something complex. To do this the student should dig up more real content and stop stating the obvious points that are on the surface of the topic. Writing can also become more bold by discontinuing the use of euphemisms, terms that are covered up cause the piece to lose its sharpness. Authors should also be concerned with allowing “pat expressions” to sneak into their writing. Pat expressions are common thoughts, or simple cliches, that take away force due to such common usage. While the expressions such as “over my dead body” and “told him time and time again” were once effective they have lost their power and are just taken up space on papers. The most important part of writing is word choice; there are three: colorful, colored, and colorless. Colorful words are the most effective and what a writer would use to paint a picture. These words are the dressy, specific, and loud words that stimulate the emotions and draw a picture in the reader’s mind. The next kind of word is the colored word, and this means that they are filled with associations. These words allow the reader to picture previous thoughts or feelings in their minds. Although, the writer should never mistake the reader for naïve than they truly are. Lastly, are the colorless words, these are the words that have lost their original force and quickly die. Colorless words include any slang

After analyzing many of my written works, I highlighted my writing weaknesses along with notable strengths. Evident in my earlier works, my vocabulary was more basic and was not as powerful unlike my more recent essays. Seeking to improve, I started utilizing words I learned during the year

As inexperienced writers, it can be easy for students to feel like they need to overcompensate to their professors by using overly extravagant words. In today’s society, thesauruses are available at just a right click in Microsoft Word, so it becomes extremely tempting for students to switch common, “simple” words for words that seem more “sophisticated” so they can sound smart and like they understand the topic more. Even though some “sophisticated” words are more specific and can work more efficiently on many occasions, students need to be aware of their audience and what level to accommodate their

After reviewing my previous essays, I’ve noticed my word choice needs improvement. By using a thesaurus, I can search for words that say exactly what I want to say. Often I make mistakes by not proofreading my essays, reading my paper out loud can help me correct run on sentences and to make sure my argument is being stressed to my

I have discovered some new programs to help correct my papers when it comes to grammar and I am starting to see where my issues are common with writing. I try to write my paper ahead of time to allow for revision because of past critiques about my essays. Unfortunately, I do this so that my paper will be more clear. Due to time constraints and unforeseen circumstances, I have not had any essay feedback yet. I have worked hard to refine my clinical notes as I do write them often at my volunteer counselling position.

English has never been my strong subject in school. When writing any paper, I have always struggled with being creative, and putting enough meaning into my paper. Grammatical errors also pose a problem for me. Being creative and grammatical errors are what I focused on most when writing my essays. My Media Analysis essay, “Portraits of the Ages,” focused on Jeep being a trustworthy brand, that is diverse, and has credibility.

I never knew writing had such an abundant amount of alternatives for words that you could tweak, and build your writing even superior. Over the past two quarters of High School I have realized that there is a significant difference between what they expected you to write in Middle School, to High School. The differences aren’t something like “Okay, we expect you to write longer, and always give your information, but with a little something different.” It’s more about making sure your word choice, vocabulary, and especially your grammar for the reason that those produce the most impact in your writing. Middle School was more about teaching you how to start using the proper grammar, and vocabulary in your writing, but they do seem to make us

For example, “This is one reason why I think Nature vs Nurture can go hand in hand.” Instead I could have said, “ This is one reason why I think Nature vs Nurture connect with each other.” My difficulties with this essay could easily be fixed. After seeing my results, I needed to work on how to properly state my sentences and making sure they are understood. I believe I was being detailed but too detailed and started to use words that did not go along with the sentence,which reflected in word choice mistakes. The good part about my essay was stating my reasons, contacting and comparing Nature and Nurture. This was good because it broke down the essay in a way where it stated the issue into paragraphs and the logical idea behind

I learned how to write texts that demonstrate awareness of audience, purpose, and genre across multiple communities and contexts. When it came to writing our second essay, I had a hard time focusing on it. My ideas were all over the place and not clear, but when I got my graded essay back, I saw that I wasn't struggling with that. In my essay, one of my topic sentences was "People turn poverty into misogyny because they view women as an object or property." Later on in my essay, explaining Haitian women are treated like an

My English teacher, Lisa Varrasso, pointed out some words where I could have used another choice of word. She also gave me ideas on other word choices I could have used. She called my choice of words slang which I did not realize that when speaking. I use more slang than known. I know that if I need help with word choices I know I can ask my English teacher, Lisa Varrasso, to take a look at my paper. I could also use The Little, Brown Handbook and a dictionary to help with my choice of words. Using a different choice of words will make my paper stronger and flow better. Furthermore, word choices

I think schools should stop teaching students that long words are always needed. Ever since I had the first lesson on writing I have been taught to use an educative language. Teachers are always asking their students to use synonyms of simple words so your writing looks more professional. Teachers taught us to use the thesaurus and use as many long words as possible, but now that I'm taking a college class I realize that it was all wrong. Students do not need to use those words. When writing an essay students should make use only of the words they know. That is the right way to do things. It doesn't have any sense to use words that you don't even know the meaning of.

William Strunk Jr’s Elements of Style is a good reference for students who are writing essays. The element that would help the most in my writing is Words Often Misspelled. I have always had a spelling problem and so depend largely on Google and a dictionary to help with my writing. In an exam setting, where students are not allowed to use dictionaries, I spend a lot of time avoiding words that I am not sure of the spelling. This also hinders me in widening my vocabulary. I will study commonly misspelled words’ spelling and meaning so that I can confidently use words like sacrilegious, ecstasy, and privilege in my writing. By studying commonly misspelled words I will become more familiar with them thereby using them more often. It is after

One of the most important part of writing is having a clear point that is simple to understand. One of the major problems with my writing is lack of analysis. In my “Danielle the Writer” essay, I would describe significant events in detail, but I did not write why it was important to my topic. In this essay, I had written about one of my first essays in the 6th grade. Even though explained the event in detail my analysis lacked in depth. I changed this by adding explaining why this had meaning to my paper, and how writing that essay changed my outlook on writing. Another example, in my rhetorical analysis essay, I had written, “The author provides numerous details, facts, and statistics

Learning a whole new language and culture halfway through fifth grade was torturous as a child just beginning to start the puberty stage. Parents and teachers shifted from a friend to the enemy. Not understanding the intentions of my parents and English As a Second Language teachers by giving me workbooks for second and third graders, I, at the time, felt like they were just trying to keep me behind the other regular English students. However, those frustrations were never conveyed since communicating with other students, and especially faculty members, seemed even more arduous. Thus, my vocabulary range is not as wide as most other people that speaks English as their first language. This can be shown in the first paper I have written titled “Faster or Stronger” for the course “Eng&101 English Composition I” instructed by Martha J. Nagel. In this paper, there was a lot of repetition by using the same words multiple times throughout the essay to emphasize the thesis (Wangadi). This type of repetition can cause readers to become disinterested in the paper because even though it makes it easier for the reader to understand the argument, the lack of variety in the choice of words makes the paper seem dull and too predictable. In the most recent paper however, there were more variety in the vocabulary to still emphasize the thesis as well. Instead of saying “biggest victims” repeatedly, “main victims” and “leading victims” were used to create a variety that would still preserve