Semester Exam Reflection

Decent Essays
Semester Exam Reflection Essay Stepping into the new school year as a Junior, I had high expectations. Nothing could bring me down. I was ready for any assignment thrown at me. However, with my first letter grade, the truth to hit; hard. I was not as good as I thought I was. I was in an honors class, now, and needed to make major adjustments. Each aspect of writing: developing a central idea, articulating my ideas, supporting them, and the mechanics, was of varying levels of difficulty. So, reflecting back on my work, I can see what I was strong in, what was easy, and where I needed improvement. Developing a central idea was not the easiest, but not the most difficult thing to do. Henceforth, when the central idea was developed, I realized, …show more content…
My ideas would be a jumbled mess in my mind, and when I tried to put them down on paper, I would feel as though the words did not quite capture and convey the entirety of what I was trying to say. This was evident in my conclusions, where I had to wrap-up the ideas mentioned in the paragraphs above. In Being True, my last sentence was, “So, all in all, Hawthorne uses these characteristics to prove that not being true to oneself can lead to a deep dissatisfaction in life” (Being True 5). That was not a satisfactory way to end a research paper about the theme of The Scarlet Letter. It was dry, and lacked the energy that captures and sticks with the reader. I could have also elaborated more on the phrase “deep dissatisfaction in life.” It should have been like the last sentence I wrote in Standing Your Ground: A formal Analysis of High Noon. which was: “Will I stand up even when it’s hard, or will I cower in fear, wanting to protect myself?” (Standing Your Ground: A formal Analysis of High Noon 3). Also, because I had trouble putting my ideas onto paper, at times, I felt as though my language in the body of the essay did not suit my education level. My language seemed too vague and generic. In Tolerance of Differences I wrote: “Katy realized the silent boy was not threatening, and she treated him with compassion and respect. Society can learn from Katy” (Tolerance of Differences 2). The sentence …show more content…
Sometimes with putting effort into coming up with a central idea, making sure I have articulated my ideas, and making sure I supported them, my mechanics can be overlooked. For Example, in Being True, I said “So Hawthorne, in the Scalet Letter...” (Being True 1). Instead, I should have said “So Hawthorne, in The Scarlet Letter...” My spelling, and in-text citation was off. Another mistake was the punctuation I made was in the rough draft of Writer’s Block. I wrote “Nope, It is as it seems” (Writer’s Block 4). I did not look closely when editing the material. Also, I struggled with poor word choice. In Being True, on the first page, twice I said “Like many people today” (Being True 1). I could have changed that around and said, “in comparison” or “similarly.” Even throughout the piece of work, I continued to say things like “people today,” “many people like that,” and “there are many people like.” It sounded as though I had a limited vocabulary and could only use “like” and “people” instead of words like, “individuals,” “humans,” and “society,” or “correspond,” “by the same token,” and “identical.” Even though I read it, I still looked over my mistakes because, in my mind, I had an idea of what it said. In order to combat this, I should have paid attention to detail while I was writing the paper. I also should have had someone else read it, and or, used an online

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