reflection based on my essays

This year, we had to read two books which are, 'The Alchemist' and 'Julius Caesar'. Based on these two books, we had to write avout the characterization of the main characters of the books. We also had to support the ideas with quotations from the books.

Ideas and Content helps to show writing to state clear and focused topics and show clear reasons. For my Alchemist Essay, it seems to shows lack of ideas and contents. I didn't show my ideas clearly and I didn't provide much evidence that could back up my ideas and the topics. Additionally, my evidence sometimes doesn't make sense. For example, 'Arabs told them to call winds in three days, the boy he didn’t know how to change into wind but he didn't give up even he could die and tried to talk to the wind by his heart and call the wind.' (Alchemist essay) It says that the Arab told them to call winds but after that line, it said that the boy didn't know how to change into wind. So, the readers might be confused about which one is right. In my Julius Caesar essay, my writing clearly show conflicts and background knowledge. I also clearly state the topic sentences. 'The character’s main conflict was that Brutus loved Caesar and he loved Romans but to make Romans live freely, he had to kill Caesar. Honor and love, these two motivators drove Brutus to decide between honor Rome and love Caesar.' (Julius Caesar essay) This shows that I state the conflict of the character well. However, still I needed to explain some of the ideas more clearly because sometimes my ideas mae confusion and difficult for the readers to understand my ideas. I also had some repetetive explaination so, I repeated some of the reasons over and over again. To improve in my problems I think I have to read my essays again and ask someone to read my essays so that I can find my errors.

My organization for Alchemist essay was quite confusing but for my Julius Caesar essay, it was fairly good. For both my essays, I started the essay with a quotation which shows interesting hook to grab my reader's attention. I also have quite good thesis statement for both of my essays. However, in my Alchemist essay, I don't really have clear topic sentences because it seems too general. 'Santiago was very intelligent.' (Alchemist essay) This seems too general and it shows nothing about Santiago. My body paragraph close with summarizing or transition sentences but it doesn't really flow well with other parts of the paragraph. In my Julius Caesar essay, I have clear thesis statement and my body paragraphs begin with fairly clear topic sentences. My body paragraphs close with summarizing or transition sentences and it flows quite well with other paragraph.

I think there are lots of growth between Alchemist essay and Julius Caesar essay. It shows how much I improved in my writing skills. The depth of the explaination became deeper and it made more sense. Also the organization of the Julius Caesar writing got better than the Alchemist essay. The quotes that I chose for the evidence fitted the topic in Julius Caesar while some of my quotes didn't fit into the topic in Alchemist essay. Addtionally, I had less grammar mistakes in my Julius Caesar essay than Alchemist essay. So, overall, I my ideas were focused on the topics and more importantly, I had exceedingly improved on writing conclusion that summarize my ideas.

SLR that represents my two essays is reason critically. When I craft essays I needed evidences to back up my opinions and I had to show the quotes that I chose are significant and my ideas make sense. Another SLR that I demonstrated in my essays was communicate effectively because writing is communication between writer and readers. Also to communicate with the reader and help the readers understand better, I had to state the evidence clearly. I might not show my reasons and ideas clearly and might not communicate really well, but I tried to do my best.