Ideas and Content
During our grade 8 year in humanities, we crafted two essays discussing the characteristics of certain characters. These essays were based on a novel ‘The Alchemist’ written by Paolo Coelho and the play ‘Julius Caesar’ written by William Shakespeare. We wrote the Alchemist essay at the first half of the year and wrote the Julius Caesar essay later on at the second half the year. In my Alchemist essay, I managed to write an essay with a focused topic with relevant details and explanations on how my quotations relate to the main idea of the paragraph. I think it was possible for me to do this since I addressed back to the thesis statement for each trait that I established. For example, “During the journey, Santiago is able to achieve his destiny because he stays determined at all times”(Alchemist essay;para2). In this quote, I stated that Santiago was a determined character by readdressing to the topic about Santiago’s characteristic that helped him achieve his destiny. However, later on my Julius Caesar essay, I did not successfully addressed back to the given topic and the thesis statement as I went along my path. Although my writing makes sense, staying off track was a fault of my low grade. I did clearly express my ideas and how my quotations relate to the main idea of the paragraph but I did not completely stay on task. So, in future, my goal is to fully respond to the given topic
Organization
In both of my essays, I think that I model appropriate organization in writing. Both papers have a neatly crafted writing that begins with a clear thesis statement and smoothly flows down it’s path as the writing goes on. In the Julius Caesar essay and the Alchemist essay, the pieces of evidence are introduced in the order according to the actual story. For example, the first piece of evidence written in the Julius Caesar essay is “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more” (Act3 scene2 lines 20~21) and the second piece of evidence written is “Who here is so rude, that would not be a Roman?...Who here is so vile, that will not love his country?” (Act 3; scene 2; lines 28~30). I could have explained these quotes on the opposite order, but I did it this way because the first quote came before the second quote in the story and I did this so that it will support my writing to flow in a continuous thread, just like how it did in the story. Although I reflect myself that I did a fairly good job on constructing the essay, I think I need to give more hook to my essay to demonstrate superior organization. Because beginning with an interesting hook to grab the reader’s attention is also an important part in an essay since attains the reader’s attention and keeping the audience engaged with the text is also very critical.
Personal Growth
From my Alchemist essay to my Julius Caesar essay, you can note my growth in writing that I have made throughout the grade 8 year. In my Julius Caesar essay, you can note something that is not very strong in the Alchemist essay, and I think that it is organization. In my Alchemist essay, I was still lacking neatness, order and a good explanation even though we had spent a lot of time on crafting this piece of writing. However, in my Julius Caesar essay, I have strongly support my ideas with relevant details and vocabulary, better than my Alchemist essay without a teacher’s support and under a time limit of 80mins. Although, gradewise, The Alchemist result was more successful you can still see that the Julius Caesar is more of a well supported essay compared to the Alchemist essay. This is because as the writing goes on and introduces new ideas, the piece flows like one piece of thread smoothly moving into another idea with detail. Also, it establishes context prior to introducting a quotation, fully explaining the significance of each supporting evidence and it’s relation with the character. In these aspects, the Julius Caesar essay is a model that demonstrates these skills well, where in my Alchemist essay, the text is very choppy and requires more details to support it’s evidence.
SLR Reflection
When crafting and essay, I think that effective communication is a required skill. As you write an essay, our first goal is to create a hook to grab the reader’s attention and this step makes a bridge that interrelates the communication between the author and the audience so that the author is made sure that the reader is engaged with the text. Also, as the writing goes on, you have to create text with the well supported evidence so that we authors can communicate our ideas with the audience. From hooking the reader into the writing and all the way to keeping the audience engaged with the paper requires a lot of communication that is a bridge for the author to represent and display his/her ideas.
When crafting and essay, I think that effective communication is a required skill. As you write an essay, our first goal is to create a hook to grab the reader’s attention and this step makes a bridge that interrelates the communication between the author and the audience so that the author is made sure that the reader is engaged with the text. Also, as the writing goes on, you have to create text with the well supported evidence so that we authors can communicate our ideas with the audience. From hooking the reader into the writing and all the way to keeping the audience engaged with the paper requires a lot of communication that is a bridge for the author to represent and display his/her ideas.
