Strengths and Challenges

My strengths as a writer are more so in analyzing a work. In the Poetry unit as well as in the Literary Analysis, we were tasked with writing claims. I think that I can analyze the language and rhetorical situation of a work well, which better aids in writing a claim. This also applies to determining the meaning of a piece of literature in it's entirety. This can be difficult for some people because you have to think about the many aspects of the work, however I believe that determining a central theme is one of my strengths. I also think that I am fairly good in dealing with word choice. This was especially relevant in the personal narrative, when describing specific scenes in great detail.

In addition to my strengths, I also faced many challenges throughout the year. These being writing over extended periods of time, sentence fluency, and determining the meter of a poem. When writing over extended periods of time, I would come to points where I was at a loss for words and ideas. Blogging has helped fix this issue, but I still get "Writer's Block" even when doing a formal essay, such as the research paper. In order to get over this issue, I would switch to another task, and then come back to my paper, which generally helped. Another personal challenge was sentence fluency. When proof-reading my essays, there were often sentences that were not as smooth as they should be. As the year has passed, I have become better at adding transitions and making my writing flow easier. A major challenge for me this year was determining meter in the Poetry unit. I struggled to understand and hear the flow of the language, but luckily we were given a fairly simple poem on the test! All of these challenges I will continue to work on into the next school year, to better my writing skills.