Sidney Jones
Digital Portfolio
Improving My Writing Skills
Language Arts Reflection
I have grown in a few different things (skills) this year in language arts class. Most of all I think I grew in my writing skills. Doing different (sometimes mini) projects in Language Arts class lets me do those things, because we have different due dates for different projects. There are some projects in Language Arts that overlap each other.
I think I grew in my writing skills, because at the start of almost every Language Arts class, we start with a writing prompt, in our writer’s notebooks. The writing prompt is 10 minutes long and usually about anything. A writing prompt is when there is something that gets us writing, like a question we have to answer, or an image that we could describe, we can also write a poem or story based on the picture. For example the first one we wrote was telling Ms. Miller, my Language Arts Teacher, what we want to grow in this year in Language Arts. At the beginning of the year my writing went to only about half of the page, or less. Now my writing is more than half a page. Every now in then it takes me a while to answer the writing prompt, but by the end of those 10 minutes I at least have half a page. I think that is the purpose of the writer’s notebooks, to increase our amount of writing. Ms. Miller said at the beginning of the year that how much we write will eventually get longer as the year goes on.
I grew in my writing skill because after the first literature circles we had to write essay. In this essay we had to answer three questions, based on my book, Among the Hidden and Among the Imposters by Margret Peterson Haddix. I thought I wrote a pretty good paper, but looking back at it now I needed to do way more proof reading. I think that is why I got bad great on the essay. Now I try to have and parent or friend proof read my writing, I also try to proof read my own writing more. I started to read what I wrote down aloud, so my writing is better and more professional. Proof reading is reading/looking over a piece of writing or work and making sure there are no spelling, grammars errors, etc. Proof reading would help me in the future because I won’t always have someone else to proof read for me, I know in future I would have to write other papers and it would be best to learn now than later. I know in future I would have to write other papers.
Lastly, I grew in my writing skills, because of the “I Remember” poem. The “I Remember” poem started with the journal entry “Memories”. My entry has 14 memories. Later that day Ms. Miller told us to highlight some of those memories that we very important and/or special to us. Then we had to pick our favorite memory for the poem. I used the one the very last one on my list that I’ve been playing piano for about 5-6 years. In the poem I described what my piano lessons were like. The setup of the room, the look of her piano, etc. Describing something is basically telling a lot of details of pretty much anything, the way it looks, sounds, taste, etc. In this project I had to make sure I had the required amount of stanzas, lines and compound sentences. I had to make sure my writing wasn’t too long or to short, but still makes sense.
Increasing my writing skill will help me in the future, because if I do not know how to correctly write, when I write an essay or any piece of writing it will not make sense. Proof reading allows me to make sure everything there are no spelling and grammar errors for my paper to make sense. Learn how to describe things allows people understand my writing more, but it’s good to go straight to the point. All of these things and more are included in writing skill. Without writing skill my writing will not seem professional.
