Ever since I was a little boy I have always loved writing and being able to write. I have always had my strengths within my writing but along with those strengths also came a lot of mistakes and weaknesses. If I am suppose to sit here and just list my weaknesses then I would exceed the three to five page limit by about 4 or 5 pages. So thank god that I have the option to list my strengths to try and convince people that I am somewhat of a good writer. So without further ado here is my self assessment essay. Strengths Thave things that I do really well as a writer and that is what makes the difference between an A or B.
One of my strengths is that I add emotion into to my writing. I showed a lot of this in the process of writing my memoir. The ability of just being able to write what I want really makes a dramatic difference in my writing. An example of this is in these couple sentences from my memoir “The car ride was quiet for the first time in 18 years, it was a bittersweet taste but more on the bitter side. All I could hear was my car slowly gliding, rolling over the bumps of the highway. I kept thinking to myself that I must not to cry, but I could not stop the flow of sadness” (Memoir Pg. ). So as shown from this example I think that I am far from shy when it comes to adding emotion. Another strength of mine is the ability to make someone laugh. Sometimes while reading a paper it gets boring and all you see is just dull, lifeless text sitting in front of you. When I write my papers I want my reader to be enticed and interested in what I am writing.
I achieve this by adding funny jokes our clever sentences here and there in my writing. A couple examples of this is in memoir as shown. “The way he ran that day made me wonder were he go the speed from because t definitely wasn’t me. ” He busted out the door and he ran so fast that you would have thought a rabid dog was chasing him, but the rabid dog was me”(Memoir Pg. 2). So as shown I think that I am really good at keeping my reader interested by adding fun into my Writing. So as you can see I have listed two strengths but I think I have one more strength that I do very well. This strength is my ability to open my paper with a good starting paragraph to really hook my reader. Everybody says that the opening paragraph is the most important thing in writing and I totally agree.
So, over the years I have really tried to perfect this skill and I think I have, here is one example “The waves were huge, they were crashing on the shore in a violent motion. North Carolina had just been hit with a tropical storm. The waves were at least on average ten to eleven feet. We were staying in our beach side condo with three other families. We were advised to stay in our rooms. We could hear the wind pounding on our balcony window. The expression it was rainy cats and dogs felt very true in this moment… “(Ab Entry 4 Pg. 4).
Weaknesses “Finally” I can hear it in your heads as you say this right at this moment, finally the time he stops bragging on himself. Yes it is the time you have all been waiting for it is time for me to list my weaknesses. I think that one of my first weaknesses is finding a good way to close my writings. As I stated earlier I am pretty good at opening papers but not so much at closing them. Sometimes I come to an abrupt ending. One example of this is “I had learned a valuable lesson this morning and it was to check my schedule”(Ab Entry 1 Pg. 1).
So, I have listed one of my weaknesses but there is another thing that I think I don’t do as well as the others. This weakness is shifting around in my papers and jumping from subject to subject. An example of this weakness is shown “That sent us on to the semifinal game the next day. We watched our opponents in a heart a breaker wear the St Paul Rams came out the winners. The next St Paul and went to double overtime wear we came out the victors. After this we went to play St Bridget in the championship”(Ab entry 3 Pg. 1) My final weakness is my ability to develop characters through details.
This is one thing that I have really struggled with over the years. Here is an example “I saw a younger kid getting bullied by the older kids for his ability to play sports. Another example is “All the older kids were calling him mean names and telling him that he shouldn’t be out there” (Ab Entry 2 Pg. 1). So, I look to improve this weakness over the years, I think I have also taken small baby steps this year with improving this skill. Growth (changes I’ve made this year) I have grown as a writer this year in being able to develop characters through dialogue . This has really changed a lot throughout the year.
Evidence that I have tried to incorporate this in my writing is in the excerpt “Johnny will you please go and clean that room of yours “No mom, I need to catch the bus” “The bus doesn’t leave for another 15 minutes you have time” “Why don’t you clean you are not doing anything”… (Memoir Pg. 2). Earlier in the paper I said that I am not the best at ending my writings, I think that this has really changed since the beginning of the year. I really demonstrate this in the ending of my memoir “So my advice is sometimes your kids will make you so mad you think you want to kick them out of the house.
At times you need peace over anger because these memories will be the memories you look back at forever”. So here is just one of the many examples on how this has gotten better over my 9th grade year. My third and final change is a strength that I listed earlier in the paper which is my ability to write a compelling opening paragraph. Even though I listed this as a strength, this is the one area that I have seen most of my growth. I think a good example of this is my opening “Ever since I was a kid I had been trying to decide what my favorite sport was going to be. It had always been a toss up between two of my favorite sports.
The only downside was that both of these sports took place in the same season”(Ab entry 6 Pg. 1), this is just one of the many examples of a good opening paragraph that I had wrote. Goals ( Changes I want to make) I have had some success with my writing this year but I have something things that I want to change for next year. One of these thing is my ability to have good grammar throughout my papers. I think that this shows up in this excerpt “The car ride was quiet for the first time in 18 years, it was a bittersweet taste but more on the bitter side”, (Memoir Pg. 1).
This might look right to any other adolescent teen but in this there is a comma splice. So, this just one of many things that I want to change for next year. One thing that I would like to change for next year along with my grammar is my word choice. I notice in these sentences “Until the one faithful day I would decide that I would pursue the lacrosse route. It has been for years since I had made that decision and I have never regretted since and till this day I will love lacrosse like I never had before” (Ab entry Pg. 6) that I used “I” 8 times in three sentences.
So this is something that I would like to change for next year. The last thing that I would like to change for next year is my inability to detect a run-on sentence. Run-on sentences are the difference between A and B. A run-on sentence really kills the vibe in a paper and I know that I won’t fly next year at the next level. I think a good example of this is “It has been for years since I had made that decision and I have never regretted since and till this day I will love lacrosse like I never had before”(Ab entry 6 Pg. 1).
I Would really like to change this for next year to really improve my writing. So as you can see I have my strengths but I also have my weakness. There are things I want to change and things I think that I am already doing very well. In the grand scheme of things think that the strengths outweigh the weakness and I am very proud of the writing that I have done this year. I think that I am to thank my Teacher Mr. Donelson on improving my writing skills and the progression of my writing ability. So, without further ado here is the end of my Self Assessment essay.
