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=Reflective Essay=

Over the years I have noticed that my writings haven't been all that great. My were short, unorganized, sloppy and had no prewriting before the final draft. This semester has been an enlightenment to my writing skills. I can now write rough drafts and correct my mistakes, which helps to make my papers to be more effective and prove a point. I now know many more ways to write a paper and how to use these skills to be a better writer. The writings that are included in my portfolio are some of the examples of how I have changed. My persuasive essay was one of the best papers I have ever written. I feel very proud of that piece of writing. When I read that paper, I look at how far my writing has come. That was some of the most prewriting and thinking I have done for one paper. But, the brainstorming that was used for that paper really shows. It is well developed, easy to read, and is not sloppy and all over the place. While writing a paper, the best thing for a writer to do is to have many drafts. The more drafts you have, the better your paper is. Around this time last year, I didn't even do any sort of pre thinking before I did a draft. Now, for every major paper that I write I need to have at least two drafts. Without drafts, your paper is very disorganized. For most of eighth grade, all of my papers were unplanned and had many mistakes. Now, my papers are very neat and clean with no mistakes. Last year, I thought that there was only one kind of paper. Now, I know that there are many types of papers and essays that you can write. There are informative, persuasive and opinion papers. Each has different rules and standards that you have to follow. Without this class, I would still be writing basic papers with no rules involved. I feel that my writing skills have changed a lot for the better during the course of this semester. I feel that this semester has been a great one for me. I learned so many things from this class that I can take with me throughout high school. I have learned the importance of drafting and prewriting. Without these key parts of writing, you will not get anywhere. I feel that I now have an advantage over other students in school writing papers. I think that this was one of the classes that I have learned the most from during this semester.