My English class has been a good learning experience for me. I had problems in English classes in the past mainly due to my poor writing. This class has taught me how to write proper English papers. I have improved my writing significantly but I still have some work to do. I understand the fundamentals to write an essay. In my previous classes i did not follow the format of an essay. Most of my essays were disorganized and chaotic. My past essays were a big part of my consistently low English grades. I have devoted my time to learn the basics of writing English papers, but I still know I have categories that I need to improve to become an efficient writer. I have chosen my definition essay, Marriage, and my commentary essay about the No Child Left Behind Act from my portfolio to show my improvement and also my weaknesses on which I need to work.
In the beginning of the semester my writing skills were very undeveloped. I did not know why my skills were poor but I knew I had to learn from scratch if I wanted to exceed in writing English papers. My most obvious problem or weakness was my incapability to write well structured paragraphs. For example, in one paragraph I would include two different topics or ideas I’m stating, which made my paragraph incomprehensible and also confused the audience. This can be seen in on the fifth paragraph of my Marriage definition essay. My initial topic of that paragraph was to discuss how the sexual revolution in the 60’s and 70’s contributed to the decline of marriage. “Another reason for marriage decline is the sexual revolution.” But as the paragraph progresses my idea shifts from sexual revolution to cohabitation and divorce rates. “Cohabitation has become really common in today’s society where in the past it was really unseen. People are more living together, according to studies cohabitation has increased in recent times.” These mistakes lead to incomplete essays and contradicting i...