Throughout our countless humanities classes over the last month or so. We have been working on our writing overall. Specifically, essay writing. The reason for writing thes essays is to prepare us for the future in grade 12 or post secondary where essays will be common. To make a good essay though, you need to have a good driving question. Our driving question was “How do authors use text to teach us about ourselves?”. With this question each student made their own thesis to write their essay on. Over the course of this section of our year we have also read multiple books and seen movies for sources to draw upon in our essays. We would have one whole class devoted to writing a timed 70 minute essay. My thesis was “how do authors use text to share stories and spread awareness”.

Instead of your run of the mill blog post, I’m doing something different this time. Il be choosing three questions from a pre-selected list of questions and answering them. I also won’t go into detail on the earlier sections of our project that I did with Jessie and Emily because I already made a post about it here. 

First of all, I’l be talking about what I think is the most important step in preparing for an essay. In my opinion, knowing your topic well and having a really rock solid idea of what you are writing about in every way. is the most important and most beneficial thing you can do for yourself. If you know your topic well than your argument will be stronger, your writing will be stronger, and the essay overall will come together much more neatly.

 Next, What is the importance of practicing the writing process and writing essays at school is? Do you think this will help you in other aspects of your life? Where? When? To start, I think practicing writing like this is important to be able to express yourself throughout your life. I also think becoming a sufficient writer is necessary to grow as a learner and become a more knowledgeable and intelligent person. There are many situations in the real world where one uses the writing process. For example, a job interview, any job that involves writing or documenting something, or writing essays for post secondary education. Even just writing to a friend it is always good to be able to pick up a pencil and be able to write a letter or email that sounds good. 

I think that in writing, everyone excels in some areas and has shortcomings in other areas. In my writing particularly, I think that I am good at just being able to get my thoughts down on paper and arrange them in a way I see fit. I think that once I have my ideas in my head, in one way or another I am able to arrange well and put them down to make coherent sentences and paragraphs. I think this is especially a strength when it comes to writing an essay because in essays, you often need to finish or at least get your ideas down quickly. 

Link to my final essay is here 

To conclude, I think this project has really helped me capture the idea of what an essay is and what different things have to come together to make a solid essay. From grammar, to a solid topic, to an intriguing hook many elements of writing are used in an essay. In th future I plan to work on drawing from my sources more effectively. It may seem odd, but I feel like if I focus on using quotes to my advantage, being able to explain in further detail what I’m referring to, and being able to concise give an opinion or state a fact, that would make my future essays much more effective.