Metacognitive Blog: And Then There Were None

I had written an essay on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. During the revision process, I made sure to correct and improve on several things. First, I changed all contractions (excluding dialogue) to their separate parent words (such as changing "don't" to "do not" or "isn't" to "is not.") Then, I read over the essay and looked for sentences that looked choppy or needed explanations or details. I made sentences longer and helped them flow better. Finally, I skimmed the essay for any grammar, spelling or punctuation errors, which were an easy fix. Of the three types of support for improving my essay, I only had the chance to receive two (written feedback on timed writing; peer editing). Personally, I believe the peer review checklist and commentary was more helpful because my peer gave specific examples of what I could fix. She also made comments on what she liked about the essay. I also think the peer review checklist was helpful because it gave a second opinion on whether or not I left anything out. As for the rest of the year, I believe peer editing, feedback on past assignments, and an adult's advice on written work will continue to help me improve my writing. I personally think that other peoples' opinions and feedback is vastly important. It can help writers by showing them what people think of their work, and readers will often catch a mistake that the writer overlooked. Even though writing is one of my strongest points in school, I have plenty of room to improve. I often make sentences much longer than they should be, and sometimes I struggle with making my writing stick to the topic. Occasionally my sentences 'jump' from topic to topic without proper transitions. One goal I have this year is to keep my writing short and sweet when necessary, and always on topic.

Thanks for reading!
~Luna M.