My Development as a Writer This page is where I will reflect on and showcase the ways in which I have grown as a writer over the course of Junior year
1. I will improve the organization of my writing. For example, in my literary analysis of “The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail”, the topic sentence of my third paragraph was not well organized because it covered one part of my paragraph but not the other. My topic sentence was, “Throughout the play, Thoreau discovers that as wonderful as it is to just be, it can be selfish and ignorant to the world’s problems”. This covers the second part of my paragraph, but not the first part of my paragraph that describes what it means to ‘be’. To better align my topic sentence with my paragraph, I would add to it like this: Throughout the play, Thoreau discovers that ‘being’ is a way being immersed in the moment and living fully, but living in a full state of ‘being’ can be selfish and ignorant to the world’s problems.
2. I will make my ideas less abstract by connecting my ideas to everyday realities. In my conclusion paragraph, I didn’t connect any of my ideas to what we face in reality in order to bring it down to earth. Some lines that show this are: Thoreau’s struggle between living with the intention of change and being for his own happiness mirrors many of our own battles for the balance between comfort and change. If completely living is being blind to the true meaning of life and completely being is being blind to the necessity for change, then Thoreau found that you can live with eyes open, truly being and yet living to make a change. I barely touched on the subject of how people can live their lives today, so I revised and expanded the lines to be: Thoreau’s struggle between living with the intention of change and being for his own happiness mirrors many of our own battles for the balance between these concepts. Many times we are sucked into the toil and routine of everyday life, and we think that in order to truly be, we have to forsake work, school, and obligations to truly experience life itself. But in doing that, we would be sitting by idly instead of making a change in this world. Thoreau shows that we can truly experience life and live in the moment no matter what we do, so that we live with eyes open, truly being and yet living to make a change.
3. I will improve my analysis of quotes in order to explain my ideas more clearly. In particular, the second quote in paragraph 3. The quote was, “[y]ou can’t count a river while it moves by you. The best thing to do is take off your clothes and go swimming in it. And when you feel the water all around you, then you’re part of the total river - where it’s been, where it is where it’s flowing. Plunge in!” In the sentence after the quote, I said: “To Henry, ‘being’ is transcending one’s physical body and living life in the moment”. I didn’t analyze the quote enough, so I revised it to be: To Henry, counting the river is like measuring how you live your life. Instead of going through the motions, to truly ‘be’ means to live in the moment and experience life around you like you would when immersed in a river.