English class has been very interesting these past 2 years Ive been with my teacher Mrs. Lepre. It has been a time for me to think about all the things I did in my 7th grade year and compare it to my 8th grade. This blog post is going to be explaining and comparing my 7th grade writing and my 8th grad e writing to see how much progress I did in 2 years. For the 7th grade assignment I chose the report on the murder mystery and the 8th grade work I picked The Lesson of The Moth paper. I chose these because I believe it really shows my improvement from 7th grade to 8th grade.

In 7th grade I had many strengths and weakness. For example on the murder mystery I had to write a report on what I thought happened to the man in the picture. In this assignment I noticed many things that I hadn’t realized before. First was that I was good at transitions throughout my report. Which improved the way the whole report added together. For instance in the second, third, and fourth paragraph I used transitions in the beginning to indicate that I was moving on. But I did find out that I repeated myself way to much. Almost in every paragraph I would say the same thing. This is not good because it can mess up the flow of the document. On top of that I did some silly spelling mistakes. Like in the second and fourth paragraph I saw that I misspelled piece and someone. But the major problem was that in those paragraphs I repeated the sentences; he committed suicide and the gun was missing from the wall. All that can affect my grade but I hadn’t realized it until now. As a result in this assignment I illustrated critical and creative thinker as a FLAGS outcome. This is because I had to analyze all the evidence given to me in the document before and think of creative ways on how the mystery could have ended. Then after I was sure I got my answer I had to make a report which was being a critical thinker by thinking on how I was to structure my writing and all the important information I had to include. Such as the evidence and explanations and also the small details like transitions and spelling.

For 8th grade I believe I improved, but there are still some mistakes that I do. The majority of my writing is much better than 7th grade. For The Lesson of The Moth we were supposed to read a poem then write some paragraphs explaining our understanding of what we just read. Right off the bat I noticed that I didn’t really use that much transitions compared to my 7th grade writing. But it is something I have to remember to do. Since, transitions is a important part of writing a good essay or in this case three paragraphs. Another thing I noticed was that I know how to explain my ideas. For example in the 2nd paragraph I saw that I made a connection with the poem I read. I was not very good at that 7th grade since I always was repeating myself. Additionally a problem I saw was that one of my sentences didn’t make sense. So this can hurt the overall grade of my writing thats why its important to revise my writing to ensure that everything is the way I want it. Also I do too much run on sentences so I have to add punctuation to pause the thinking of the writing. As a result for this document I showed effective communicator as a FLAGS outcome. As the assignment shows I am able to share my ideas clearly and explain what I am thinking. My understanding of the reading from the poem is especially important since I have to make connections with the poem. So that why this assignment makes me a effective communicator.

Finally I improved as a writer from 7th grade to 8th grade. This is because I have improved how I express my ideas to the readers of my writing. Since I don’t repeat myself that much anymore I can show new ideas so it gets the readers thinking and making their own connections. But I still have weaknesses in 8th grade. Some are that I don’t use that much transitions. Also I have to work on my punctuations like commas. Because I still get stuck on how Im supposed to use them in the right spot on the right time. I can improve these areas for high school since I already addressed my problems. Now all I have to do is fix it.