PROSE PASSAGE REFLECTION

So, last week in AP Lit, we wrote our first prose passage essay in class. After writing the essay,
I wasn't sure of how I did. I did think that my overall idea was a little disorganized and
hard to follow. What I thought of insight could have made absolutely no sense to the reader
because of the lack of description added in the essay. But when I got back
my essay and fellow students evaluated it, I was able to get a more clearer idea of how I
had written the essay. For one, I didn't read the short introduction at the top and
didn't realize that Arun, Melanie, and Mrs. Patton weren't related. I should make sure
to read that section next time.....
Other than that, there were two major problems that my evaluators and I saw in the essay.
1) There was no clear thesis in the essay that clearly stated the literary devices
that were going to be analyzed in the essay.
2) The ideas were disorganized.
First of all, I had always known that my thesis was an issue. Even though I knew that it had to be
in the essay, whenever the time came to write it, I would always forget about it and write an
unnecessary sentence in place of it. Also, I would forget to have a topic sentence for each body
paragraph that tied to the thesis. Thankfully, we got a handout that thoroughly went over
the thesis statement and helped me realize the importance of it. Hopefully, I won't ever
forget to put one in an essay from now on.
Secondly, because my ideas are so disheveled and has horrible organization, the readers find that
I either have too much information that aren't thoroughly argued, or lacks the organization that makes
the essay hard to follow. Again, like the problem with the thesis statement, I was never organized
with my thoughts. I just wrote them out on the paper in the order the ideas came to me.
Especially with a time constraint, it was harder for me to try to make more sense of the
claim in my essay. I honestly don't know if there's a way I can instantly fix this problem
except with practice. It also seems like writing a better thesis would help me organize
the body paragraphs and have a more exact idea of what I would be supporting.
My goal for the next timed writing is to make my paper sound more
well-developed and more sophisticated. Although it will take some practice and possibly
won't happen in the next essay I write, I will try to use more complex vocabulary and have
better sentence structure. Also, I will try to have deeper analysis of the text
and lay it out on paper in an orderly fashion that makes it a lot easier for the reader to follow
and understand. The essay will obviously have a clearer thesis statement that will
state the central idea of the entire essay.