For me, the most significant element of of my progress was my blogging. Previously, I thought that good analysis meant dropping a quote and explaining it by using phrases like, "this quote show that". This is probably due to lack of interest in the subject, which caused me to revert back to methods of literary analysis that I learned in lower levels. One example of my earlier blogs in which I used this style of analysis was the Summer Reading Prompted Writing Final that I wrote in August. This is unlike my Hamlet Literary Analysis Essay, in which I used quotes for evidence and my own commentary as a way to continue the discussion within the analysis. This reveals that I now know what is considered acceptable analysis for college preparatory assignments.
Having learned how to better analyze literature, I now feel that I am more prepared for college-level analysis. Additionally, I have learned that in order to do well on assignments that may not seem exciting at first, I just have to find a specific aspect of the assignment that could relate to me or that pique my interest to allow myself to explore the complexity of the topics. I have significantly improved my ability to analyze texts, however, I have not yet developed my own concrete voice as a writer. This means that I do not have my own style of expressing my ideas. This skill will be essential to me as a practitioner, because it will change the way in which I write in the future. Because I have not yet developed this voice, I will now need to continue to work at finding how I best express my thoughts as a write. As a next step, I need to work to find this voice and then incorporate it into the skills that I have learned this year to make my writing even more successful.
