Last year as well as this year English has not only been fun, but very educational considering it is by far my favorite subject in school. I have learned so many new things since I have come out of elementary school and I feel I have grown tremendously as a writer. In order to show my growth and for you as a reader to see where I am coming from I have chosen two English artifacts, one from seventh grade and the other from this year in eighth grade. I feel this way you can visually see my improvement as well as hear it directly from me. The two artifacts I have chosen are my Performance Task Essay from seventh grade and my Lesson of the Moth Blog Post from this year.

For the seventh grade assignment that I chose the target was to write an argumentative essay about which we thought was better bottled water or tap water. I argued that bottled water was better and I used many sources as my evidence proving that I knew how to cite them. This came naturally easy to me however when it came to writing my counterargument I had more of a struggle. I didn’t quite understand where the paragraph needed to be placed in the essay and when it came down to it, I lost some points on my overall score. There were also some minor spelling errors that could have been easily fixed looking back at my essay now. I feel that this assignment demonstrates that I can be an effective communicator because of the fact that in the process of planning this essay I needed to analyze primary and secondary sources. I also showed that I can read other opinions as well as respond academically on my own as shown in my argument towards bottled water and tap water. 

The second artifact I have chosen is more of a reflection on a poem we read in class about a moth and a cockroach. The assignment was assigned so that we could compare the two points of views of these two animals and ultimately choose which one we agreed with. This is very similar to the seventh grade assignment because we have to analyze the poem and explain why we chose the side that we chose. I earned a 4 on this assignment so it was hard to find any negative things, however there were many positive things I highlighted as shown in the picture below. I feel this assignment especially helped me with finding the theme of a source. I also improved my skills when comparing two philosophies and explain my own point of view. This artifact also shows my skills as a effective communicator because I once again showed how I can reflect on a source and express my opinion in a way that is understandable. With these qualities I can continue to grow and improve my skills as a writer.

Coming to the end of the year I definitely feel like I have made a major improvement in my academic writing. Going back to seventh grade and finding silly mistakes to now where its hard to even find any errors is very inspiring because it shows how much I have learned and grown as a writer. I do think that I could definitely work on my dialogue in my essays especially narratives that way I add another skill to my writing as I’m going into highschool, but as of right now I am happy with what I have accomplished these two years of middle school and I know that I will continue to grow even more as the years go by.