12th Grade Humanities
Writing Goals
Organization:
In my writing, especially if I am passionate about what I am writing about, I tend to loose my organization skills. Organization is extremely important when writing long papers. It is extremely important to have a clear train of thought so that your audience can follow the topic that you are presenting. If you go off on a rant about something vaguely important to the main point your reader will forget about the actual point that you are making. When I am writing initial drafts of a paper, when I have an idea I tend to elaborate on it, even if it doesn’t make sense in the current paragraph that I am writing in. My goal this year is to spend more time outlining papers and ensuring that I have a clear plan ahead of time. To do this, I need to slow down my writing and spend more time in the pre-writing stages. I am going to physically write out an outline if possible.
Use of Evidence:
I struggle to find the appropriate time to use evidence in my papers. Sometimes I feel as though using a quote would actually interrupt the thoughts that my reader would be having in my paper. I use plenty of evidence, however I do not know how to properly integrate it into my writing. In order to fix this, I am going to use my first goal of organizing to find the exact quotes that I want to use and pre-plan when I am going to insert them into my paper. I am going to make sure that I put them in a place that makes sense within the paragraph. I do not have a problem with putting quotes or evidence in the proper place throughout the whole paper, it is more a problem with putting them in the right place.
Background information:
Once again, this begins in the planning stages of my writing. I need to do more research on the topics that I am writing about and find actual, physical evidence to support my claims. I know that the claims I say make sense in my head but I need to prove them using facts, that is a founding principle of Animas High School. I know that I have grown in this over the past three years and I need to continue to do my research before I begin writing. I am going to ensure that I devote enough time to planning my writing before I do it, everything from researching my topic to outlining how I want to use that information to convey my message. One thing that I have seen myself grow in is taking the time while writing to research if I am making a claim that I wasn’t prepared for. I know that this year I can grow in using my research skill to back up my rhetoric.
College Essay Refinement Process:
I am really proud of the way that I am able to refine my papers. From the beginning of Freshman year I made it my goal to get better at proofreading and editing papers. Through Animas’s critique structure and the help of my peers, I am able to gather incredible feedback and apply it to the paper. What I do however, is instead of updating the current draft of the paper, I actually spend the time to rewrite it over again. I put the newest version on the left and type out the new version next to it. By doing this, I am forced to read my paper several times and this allows me to find errors quickly. I have found that by doing this my first draft and my final draft end up drastically different. This process also makes it easy for me to show how my essay has changed over the revision process.
In my writing, especially if I am passionate about what I am writing about, I tend to loose my organization skills. Organization is extremely important when writing long papers. It is extremely important to have a clear train of thought so that your audience can follow the topic that you are presenting. If you go off on a rant about something vaguely important to the main point your reader will forget about the actual point that you are making. When I am writing initial drafts of a paper, when I have an idea I tend to elaborate on it, even if it doesn’t make sense in the current paragraph that I am writing in. My goal this year is to spend more time outlining papers and ensuring that I have a clear plan ahead of time. To do this, I need to slow down my writing and spend more time in the pre-writing stages. I am going to physically write out an outline if possible.
Use of Evidence:
I struggle to find the appropriate time to use evidence in my papers. Sometimes I feel as though using a quote would actually interrupt the thoughts that my reader would be having in my paper. I use plenty of evidence, however I do not know how to properly integrate it into my writing. In order to fix this, I am going to use my first goal of organizing to find the exact quotes that I want to use and pre-plan when I am going to insert them into my paper. I am going to make sure that I put them in a place that makes sense within the paragraph. I do not have a problem with putting quotes or evidence in the proper place throughout the whole paper, it is more a problem with putting them in the right place.
Background information:
Once again, this begins in the planning stages of my writing. I need to do more research on the topics that I am writing about and find actual, physical evidence to support my claims. I know that the claims I say make sense in my head but I need to prove them using facts, that is a founding principle of Animas High School. I know that I have grown in this over the past three years and I need to continue to do my research before I begin writing. I am going to ensure that I devote enough time to planning my writing before I do it, everything from researching my topic to outlining how I want to use that information to convey my message. One thing that I have seen myself grow in is taking the time while writing to research if I am making a claim that I wasn’t prepared for. I know that this year I can grow in using my research skill to back up my rhetoric.
College Essay Refinement Process:
I am really proud of the way that I am able to refine my papers. From the beginning of Freshman year I made it my goal to get better at proofreading and editing papers. Through Animas’s critique structure and the help of my peers, I am able to gather incredible feedback and apply it to the paper. What I do however, is instead of updating the current draft of the paper, I actually spend the time to rewrite it over again. I put the newest version on the left and type out the new version next to it. By doing this, I am forced to read my paper several times and this allows me to find errors quickly. I have found that by doing this my first draft and my final draft end up drastically different. This process also makes it easy for me to show how my essay has changed over the revision process.