The past two years in English class have been quite interesting and fun. We have learned so many different things and I truly believe that my writing skills have improved. I’m writing this blog post because I want to demonstrate and explain how I have bettered in this class. One assignment that I am going to write about is the Performance Task Essay from 7th grade about whether bottled water is better than tap water. The other assignment is the 8th grade Performance Task Essay which states whether we should recycle our water or not. I chose these two assignments because they were two challenges that thought me several different techniques which have helped me ameliorate my writing.

In 7th grade, we were assigned to complete an essay for our Performance Task. We were given a topic, background information, and sources to finish this task. For the assignment, “Bottled Water vs. Tap Water,” we basically had to write an argumentative essay about what we believed was the best source of water and why. Below is a screenshot of annotations I recently did showing what I did well and what I didn’t:

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In the introduction paragraph I had a good hook and I also stated both sides of the argument and my own opinion. In my second paragraph, I had great evidence that supported my first reasoning. Although this is true, I didn’t cite my sources properly, I forgot two commas, and my starting sentence was done incorrectly. I wrote, “My first reason is that…” This is unclear because I didn’t state what my reason was for. Additionally, in the last sentence I used the wrong noun when I said, “cleaning out parents wallets,” because it wasn’t just parents wallets being affected, it was everyone that paid for bottled water. For the third paragraph, I spelled “a lot” and “of” wrong and I had bad punctuation. In addition, I was being repetitive because I said tap water came from “the same place,” twice. Furthermore, I didn’t know how to integrate the quotes. In the next paragraph, I started off saying, “Here,” when I hadn’t explained where. Then, I forgot a comma after “however” and I used bad, awkward evidence. Also, I said, “Mr.Walton says,” without explaining who Mr.Walton is. Lastly, I spelled “should” wrong and I gave horrible counterargument evidence because not only did I not defend my side, but I didn’t go against their side either. In the 5th paragraph, I had good evidence that backed up my reasoning, but I forgot a comma, I didn’t blend my quote or cite my sources properly, and instead of using “where,” I used “were.” In my conclusion paragraph, I spelled “environment” and “a lot” wrong, twice, and I gave a suggestion to the readers instead of telling them what to do. Other than that, I concluded pretty good because I restated the main reasonings and argument and I had a great ending sentence. By completing this assignment, I demonstrated being an effective communicator by being able to defend my claim by having a good explanation and providing evidence using the sources given.

“Recycled Water-To Drink or Not To Drink?” was an assignment given to us this year as 8th graders. We were instructed to write an essay for this years Performance Task. We had to do the exact same thing we did for 7th grade except with a new topic. We had to write another argumentative essay, but this time we had to talk about what we believed about recycling our water. Below is another screenshot of annotations that includes what I did well and what needs improvement:

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In the first paragraph I wrote an introductory sentence that will get people hooked. I also did a good job explaining both sides of the argument and telling the readers what I believed. In the second paragraph, I used ellipses. In the third paragraph, I used brackets. Throughout the whole essay, I used a variety of appositives, I cited my sources properly, and I integrated all of my quotes. I also used strong evidence to support my reasonings. Not only that, but I added a lot of transitions. In my fourth paragraph, my counterargument was explained well and I included evidence that actually defended my claim. In my conclusion paragraph, I correctly restated all of the main reasonings without repeating what I stated in the introduction. Also, it was very convincing and will make parents want to listen to my opinion because I talked about how it affected their family. Even though this essay was done well, I believe that I need improvement when it comes to how I cite my sources. This is because although it is done correctly, I lack different ways to cite them. Finishing this essay showed how I was being global and civic minded because I demonstarted an awareness of a political, natural, and economic issue in our community and I explained how and why we should improve it.

Between 7th and 8th grade I have improved as a writer in several ways. For starters, I have learned plenty of new methods for writing in general. Additionally, the way my writing sounds is much more smooth and understandable and less awkward. As a current 8th grader, I still have a few weaknesses I need to work on. For instance, not being repetitive and coming up with other ways to say something without changing its meaning. I can improve these weaknesses for high school by reading and getting ideas from good books and practicing writing.