Throughout my junior year, I have had an opportunity to write in a mix of different styles and pieces over a variety of topics. I have made many strides as a writer this year. I got to practice and learn about many different kinds of writing, I finally understand how to spot passive voice, and I worked on cursing less because we had a swear jar in the classroom. Using edits from my peers and the topics we have reviewed and learned this year, I have made a couple of polished pieces that I believe are ready to share with the world. You can find them, along with other pieces of mine, on the works tab of this website.
I feel as though my major growth this year has happened through the space we were given to write. Over the past few years, I have had a few major essays but not many other writing opportunities. This year, we have gotten to write a handful of different papers, such as a comparison and contrast piece and an op-ed piece. people say that practice makes perfect, and you can tell from looking at my work from this year that practicing has certainly improved my writing. Some of the people in my class did not seem to like it very much, but I love writing and I’m glad I got to practice throughout the year!
We learned about passive voice this year, and while I still don't feel completely confident about fixing them, I have been able to spot passive voice in my own writing as well as others. I had been taught about passive voice in other English classes but it didn't fully click in until this year. It's funny to look over previous essays from past years and even from the beginning of this year and see just how often I write in passive voice. I hope to continue to work with fixing them in the near future.
I also learned about writing op-ed pieces, which I had never really done before, as well as comparison and contrast essays, which I haven't really done since middle or even elementary school. It was nice to learn about new kinds of writing. i cannot wait to hone my new skills in the upcoming years. I liked how we learned about the writing styles and read multiple examples before trying them ourselves. Working on op-ed pieces was really nice as often, I tend to rant and go off on tangents, so it was nice to work on making structured, evidence based claims and arguments.