Adrian Llamas

May 27, 2019

AP Literature

Reflection Paper

The development of my writing since freshman year to now, senior year has had

an enormous growth. Transitioning from the grammar school style of writing to high

school writing was not particularly easy worth every second. In my own writing from

past years of high school there has also been a big growth in many aspects of my writing

that emphasizes the change in writing over the years of practicing writing from year to

year. Personally writing was never my strong suit in grammar school and entering high

school so it can be said that it was definitely something I had to put more work into and

practice more. Starting from freshman year, my english class was difficult but I put my

mind into learning how to become a better writer and with that became a better reader as

well. Throughout the year of high school I never really noticed the progress I was making

with my writing till senior year when I had the chance to reflect and evaluate myself and

how my writing has changed in the four years of high school. This year is when I noticed

how significant english class was in high school and how important it is going to be in

college. The little lessons about grammar and sentence structure ended up making a big

difference in understanding different types of writing but also incorporating it into my

own to push my ideas through the reader. From going through my weebly and reflecting

through all my pieces of writing from the start of high school I have noticed that the most
significant improvements in my writing were organization of the writing, development of

ideas, and incorporating more of my voice.

From the start of high school to senior year I have noticed that my organization

has improved on a large level. Organization in writing is the structure in which the reader

is going to read the writing and better understand the writing rather than jumping from

idea to idea and crucial to making certain that the reader picks up the main

arguments/ideas you are attempting to demonstrate. Taking an example from freshman

year on my writing piece titled​ Bravest Character in TKAM ​there was a lack of

organization skills that made the writing less impactful in getting my argument out to the

reader. The claim was present in the introduction paragraph but lacked the guidance for

the reader to fully be aware of how the writing was going to be structured which lead to a

weaker argument being made. I then compared this piece of writing to a 12th grade

writing under the literary analysis segment on my weebly where I wrote about how two

different authors can make different books with different styles of writing and still

manage to put forth similar ideas. In the writing I used the books ​A Child Called It ​ by

Dave Pelzer and ​Ceremony​ by Leslie Marmon Silko. In this writing I made a clear

introduction paragraph and a claim that was followed throughout the whole essay. In the

second paragraph I then began my first piece of argument and pieces of evidence and

transitioned to my second idea in the third paragraph. Then followed another piece of

evidence that related to both recent paragraphs and wrapped it all up in the conclusion

where I again restated the claim to make sure that the reader understand my statements

throughout the whole essay. This compared to my freshman year piece shows the
significance of organization in writing and how much more impactful it is for the reader

to better understand the argument being made and this was learned from reading different

types of book with authors that have different styles of writing but have their way of

getting the ideas and theme of the story to the reader. From reading different books I also

learned better ways of explaining evidence and picking out the most relevant pieces of

evidence to make the arguments stronger.

Development of ideas in my writing was also a noticeable factor that has

massively improved from the first year of high school to my senior year. Developing

ideas from evidence provides better reason for the reader to take side being presented. In

​ y evidence was there but my explanation was not

the ​Bravest Character From TKAM m

which made my idea of the bravest character in the book inadequate. Better explaining

the evidence and providing more evidence would have made my argument much more

clear to the reader and reasonable. In my 12th grade piece under literary analysis about

the statement Roland Barthes made I mentioned the play ​Hamlet​ to relate to the

statement. From Hamlet I mentioned the ghost and from those pieces of evidence I

elaborated on why those pieces of evidence were relevant to the statement by Ronald and

made it clear to the reader that the book has a relation to the statement. In my writing

piece from freshman year there was little explanation on to why Atticus was the bravest

character in ​How To Kill A Mockingbird ​which made the argument less convincing to the

reader.

The last component of writing that was most notable by myself when reflecting

through my piece of writing from high school was putting my own voice into my writing.
This tool was difficult to include in my writing as I was taught in writing to not include

your own opinion because it does not matter when writing about a book or books. Being

accustomed to this idea of not including my own ideas it was hard to get into putting my

voice in my writing. It is fairly easy to notice that there was no parts of my writing from

freshman year that included my voice and easily noticed in my senior year writing. In my

12th grade writing under creative/reflective writing on weebly I wrote about an African

American journalist on the phrase “Just get over it” and in this piece I kept the

organization of a proper essay but made arguments that were more opinion based with

evidence that was relevant and useful for the argument I was making. I used books I have

read from class such as ​Beloved ​ and took overall meaning of stories and connected it all

together to make an argument that was generally opinion based but had sufficient

evidence that made it a reasonable argument for a reader to understand. Also from my

weebly under literary analysis on the writing about the statement by Roland, it was a

piece of writing that was more like a general/open ended question that anyone can

answer. These types of writing are very much opinion based but only relevant with

evidence that accompanies the statements. The statement by Roland was about literature

and not about a specific book and author which made it open to everyone. This is when

inputting my voice was the easiest as the question was not towards a book but more or

less just experience of reading and writing. In this writing piece I used the play ​Hamlet​ to

best answer the question that was relevant to my argument which made the reason to my

argument very credible and adequate.

 In conclusion what I saw from reflecting on all my high school writing was that

many key tools that were developed throughout the years to better my writing and my

reading. These literary tools included structure of writing, better analysis of evidence, and

making my writing have a voice that demonstrates my ideas. From all this improvement

as a writer I have also learned to become a better reader and thinker with have the

opportunity to view and analyze all different types of writing which makes it easier to

understand how authors use their own style to get their message across. Also from

writing, empathy has grown on me and when reader and thinking about certain situations

or obstacles I am able to put myself in their shoes to have a better understanding.