I’ve felt like I have grown as an English student in the past two years. Walking into 7th grade, I had a reality check on how good my English was. Looking at my past assignments I have shown improvement. This blog post is to show how I’ve grown in English class from 7th to 8th grade. I decided to choose the performance task from 7th and 8th grade because it represents what level of English I was in back then and what it is now.
The first assignment I chose for 7th grade was the Performance Task Essay. We read two articles which was about bottled water and tap water. After that, we had to write a six paragraph argumentative essay on weather bottled water was better or if tap water was better. The assignment required evidence to help support our claim on the more beneficial water. One of my strengths in this assignment was that I had a good introduction. I had a good hook, stated my claim, and gave background information about the topic. But, there were three things I did wrong. I didn’t cite my sources correctly, spelling errors, and a bad counter argument. That was a sign that I needed improvement. I can connect this assignment to being Global and Civic minded because this assignment was about an issue dealt around the world. This topic affected the community health wise and economically.
The second assignment I chose was the 8th grade Performance Task Essay. San Diego is in a drought so we need to find ways on how to conserve water. In this essay we read three articles about reusing water which we used as sources or evidence. This means that we reuse water that had been used before. They called this “toilet to tap”. The first source was a poem about a child and his experience with water from a well , the second was a email from former San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders about the concerns of “toilet to tap, and the last was a news article about the benefits of reusing water. We then had to chose if imported water was better or reusing water. After we wrote a argumentative essay of what we thought was better. On this essay my strengths were once my weaknesses. I had no spelling errors, I cited my sources correctly and used them correctly, and had a way better counter argument compared to my 7th grade performance task. I had no weakness in this essay. I would connect this to being Global and Civic minded because it deals with issues in the San Diego community. The drought has an economic effect because it will cost the city a lot of money whatever they decide to do.
I’ve improved so much as a writer because I’ve identified the mistakes I have made in the past and avoided them. I am able to do that was once a mistake and turn it onto something better. The only thing I need improvement on is my conclusions. My conclusions seem to be short with very little detail. Other then that I am ready for English when I move on to high school.