Essay

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Student Name

Professor ____

English 12

31 May, 2020

Self-assessment Essay

During this course I have improved many aspects of my writing. Also, I have been

practicing a lot, and working on my mistakes. Some of the skills that I have mastered the most

are: incorporating independent research and outside information into my essays; developing

ideas and making them more clear to the reader; working on organization and structure of the

essay; effectively using feedbacks offered by peers and professor __ in the process of revising.

Now at the end of this semester I consider myself a better writer!

One and very important skill I have acquired while writing my essay #1 is how to include

independent research and outside sources in my essay. Adding texts from other resources allows

a writer to gain additional information about a topic and influence the reader to agree with her.

My essay is about the differences in educational system in Ukraine and the US. I did some

research on my topic and found related article by Pavlo Rudenko “International student

perspective: Life and higher education in Ukraine.” The article contains some history about

Ukrainian education. The part that I included is: “The Ukrainian higher education system is

greatly inherited from the former Soviet Union and consists from separate student preparation

programs. The class schedules are absolutely fixed inside of the program, and if student graduate

with a certain specialization, they have taken all the classes listed for that specialization”

(Rudenko 30). Also. I included work cited at the end of essay.

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Another thing I worked on my essay was developing my ideas and clarifying my points

in the introduction. The simple and more direct introduction gives reader a better idea of what

the essay is about. For example, in draft #1 my introduction was very general and mainly about

why education is important for an individual. In the next draft I included that “The environment

and type of education are also very important. They can better motivate and make a significant

difference in what someone is able to achieve.” Also, I explained that the environment in an

American college is making me a more effective student compared to a Ukrainian college.

And finally, by using feedback offered by professor ___, I revised my essay and made it

more developed and better organized. One thing I did is adding an example to support my

statement. For instance, in paragraph six I explained that it is easier to approach an American

professor with any questions. My example was “If I have any questions about the subject, I can

email or schedule an appointment with professors and they will answer all of them.” I also added

the conclusion. A conclusion is an important part of an essay, it provides closure for the reader

and summarizes points that are made in an essay.

In my second essay I worked on organization and structure of the essay. An essay that is

organized into paragraphs is easier to read. Also, it is more clear, focused, and logical to reader.

Creating order makes it easier to follow the sequence of ideas. For example, in my draft #2

paragraph two, I started with explaining what is calculator and what are the advantages and

disadvantages of using calculators in classrooms. In the same paragraph I gave an example from

The Smartest Kids in the World book and explanation of how the use of calculator is affecting

students of Poland. After all my paragraph became lengthy and difficult to follow, so in my next

draft I divided the same information into two separate paragraphs. One of them was about

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calculators in general and the second one was an example and explanation from the book. I think

this improved the overall structure and my ideas became more developed.

Another aspect that I worked on was including independent research and reading. The

second essay was mostly an analysis of The Smartest Kids in the World book combined with my

own opinion. Basically, what I did was introducing my own ideas about the role of technology in

today’s education and I supported those ideas with examples from the book. In my third draft

third and fifth paragraphs are about calculators and whiteboards. In addition to my own ideas I

included the direct quotations and statistics from the book to support those points. Also, I did an

independent research about technology and education and found a very interesting article from

the journal Education Week. According to the article “Public schools in the United States now

provide at least one computer for every five students. They spend more that $3 billion per year

on digital content. High-speed internet and free online teaching resources are now available in

the most rural and remote schools”. I think this information fulfilled my essay and made it more

factual.

Constant practicing and reading enabled me to improve the presentation of my essay also.

Use of incorrect words and grammar sometime can be misleading to the reader and give him the

wrong idea about the content of an essay. Using feedback offered by professor Ihara and

following general structure of an essay including MLA style I was able to correct my essay and

make it more clear. For example, in my second draft I included some information from outside

source, but I failed to put quotation marks. In my third draft I fixed it. It is important to use

quotation marks to show the exact words of other writers. Also, providing citations shows the

reader that I have done the research and I have made myself familiar with thought process of

others.

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In conclusion, during this semester I have been working on the weak aspects of my

writing and as a result my writing skills have improved significantly. Such skills will be very

useful in my future as a student especially during the next composition course.