Ideas and Content
This year, we wrote 2 essays in our humanities class. One was an essay about the characterization of Santiago, the protagonist in the Alchemist, and one was an essay about the characterization of one of the protagonists in Julius Caesar, which I chose Brutus. Now that the year has nearly come to an end, I am able to see some significant changes in my writing. As I reflected on my essays written this year, I noticed that I demonstrated appropriate ideas and content better in my Julius Caesar essay, even though I scored a lower mark on it than the Alchemist essay. This is probably because on my Alchemist essay, I had enough time to finish it and I had also had the chance to read it over, get feedback and rewrite the whole thing. But in my Julius Caesar essay, I didn't have enough time to finish it and wasn't able to write drafts or do a rewrite. Still, in my first essay, I noticed myself providing quotes and ideas but not giving full explanations. "“The boy stood up shakily, and looked once more at the Pyramids. They seemed to laugh at him, and he laughed back, his heart bursting with joy. Because now he knew where his treasure was.” (155) Santiago was beaten up to near death by some men he met while digging for his treasure in front of the Pyramids. But when the men learn why the boy is digging, the leader tells him about his dream, where he found a treasure in the Andalusian countryside. Santiago realizes that place is his final destiny, and forgets his pain, laughing aloud with joy." This is an example from my essay about the Alchemist. Here, it is shown that I didn't provide enough explanations why I chose that specific quote. But in my Julius Caesar essay, it can be seen that I provide both explanations and ideas with the quote. "We can see Brutus’ patriotism in the funeral speech he gives for Caesar. “If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome Rome
Organization
My writing demonstrates appropriate organization overall as in both essays, I have an appropriate introductory paragraph that states my thesis statement and my ideas for this essay. In the Alchemist essay, it was insight, compassion and determination for Santiago and in the Julius Caesar essay, it was honor and patriotism for Brutus. I do have 2 or 3 body paragraphs for both essays, but my first body paragraph for the Julius Caesar essay was incomplete as I ran out of time to finish writing it. My other body paragraphs were complete paragraphs with 2~3 pieces of evidence in each of them. The rest of my essays had pretty good organization, considering that the Alchemist essay was written in the beginning of the year and the Julius Caesar essay was written in 80 minutes, without the process of drafting. I can improve my writing by planning in more detail next time I write an essay and going through several drafting processes.
Personal Growth
I do notice some improvement between my Alchemist essay and my Julius Caesar essay like the different ways I introduced my ideas and content. Another improvement I noticed was in my Julius Caesar essay, I seemed to have a more concise word choice. I thought so because my Alchemist essay was at least 4 pages long but my Julius Caesar essay was about 3 pages long. But this might be because in my Alchemist essay, I had 3 body paragraphs instead of 2, and one of the 2 body paragraphs were incomplete in my Julius Caesar essay.
SLR Reflection
I would choose 'Reason Critically' as a SLR I use frequently when writing essays. I chose this SLR because to write a good essay, choosing appropriate and exact evidence is critical to successfully support the ideas presented. I thought that to choose these appropriate pieces of evidence, you need all the SLR's. But to me, the one that was the most important and needed was 'Reason Critically'. I thought so because even if you picked out great quotes, without critical reasoning, you won't be able to know if it is the best quote and come to your best decision.
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