Throughout high school my writing has vastly improved as I
learned new techniques on essay writing. Personally, I’ve always been the type
of person that needs to write an outline to write any kind of essay, or else I
wander completely off topic and my assignment will turn out to be more of a
rant than an organized essay. I learned this freshman year of high school when
I turned in a three page paper that was all one paragraph. No intro. No
conclusion. Literally a three page paragraph. God bless my poor English
teacher. She taught me that since I tend to deviate from the topic, my best
chance at a well-written essay is to incorporate structure. This is what got me
into the habit of writing outlines and drafts, which truly doesn’t take too
much more time and greatly improves my final essay. Making outlines allowed me
to begin with my idea, form it into a thesis, and have it develop into my
paper. I have a tendency to back up my thesis with whatever literary proof I
need, and this proof is separated into separate paragraphs with a few details
each. I don’t have any rhetorical devices that I automatically fall back on,
since I like to keep my writing organic by incorporating different rhetoric for
different assignments. My writing is by no means completely developed, and I
get better every time I write.
Constructing outlines have always had a beneficial effect on my essays as well. It allows me to organize the information I need for the assignment in an orderly manner that makes sense to me. I strongly agree with your last statement. High school students often ignore the fact that, much like their body, their writing is still developing.
ReplyDeleteI have the exact same problem when I write. Sometimes I will get lazy and try to just quickly write out the paper or essay with no preparation. It doesn’t work for me. I think it’s great that you’re getting better as you continue to write; too many people just give up!
ReplyDeleteOutlines are the bases of all my writing and when their is none I find myself going in a direction that has no end. Every english class a totally different way of doing it and adds more things needed and I feel that even you can agree with me on that on.
ReplyDeleteDid you use outlines for the first writing assignments? If so, I'd like to share your process with the rest of the class--if that's okay.
ReplyDelete