I started off this paper feeling quite confident as I went through researching and finding information about the paper, but this soon changed as I began writing my paper. I found many difficulties in trying to word what I was trying to say and to get my wording to flow along with my paper. Finding the right examples from the story and from my research also seemed to be difficult. Every time I found something that I believed fit the best in my story, I'd come across another that made me second guess that decision. The majority of the time I spent writing this paper was trying to get correct examples from the text. The part I found to be a real strong point in my paper was the opening paragraph. This took me almost no time at all and every way I tried to word it made sense and sounded good. When I was done with it, I was feeling really confident that the strongest part of my paper was my thesis and opening paragraph.
I found that the pre-writing activity for writing the first paragraph and the thesis statement helped me in many ways. It allowed me to not think of the paper as a whole, but instead break it down and focus on one small piece at a time. This activity really made it possible to put all my focus into one area of my paper and after the whole essay was complete it turned out to be the strongest part of the paper. I feel that if I would have done more of these activities before writing the story, it would have ended up a much better paper. In future essays I plan on spending more time doing pre-writing activities as I feel it will turn out a much better end product.
When it came to peer editing, I found that it basically did nothing for me. I honestly don't think I even took one thing they said into consideration. Peer editing the other person's paper also didn't do anything for me. Even though we were both writing off the same prompt, the main idea you can use is still up in the air and does give you a lot of room to make changes to. I just didn't think it was necessary to take any ideas from a paper involving the holocaust and put it into my paper involving a small town in Illinois. I think the peer editing would be much more useful if you just discussed each person's paper in a small group of maybe four or five, not writing it down. I believe hearing the criticism straight from the person and from more than one person would shine a new light on my paper and would have actually made me consider making some of the changes they suggested.
The main strengths of my paper definitely lie within the first paragraph. I feel as if there is no possible way to enhance my opening sentence along with the way I present the information in the middle sentences. Also I feel like if I had to pick one main sentence that really stands apart from the rest it's definitely my thesis statement. It really describes what I'm trying to get across in the story well and does a good job describing what is to come in the rest of the essay. I don't think I did a proper job with my conclusion though. The whole story flows really well but then the conclusion almost ruins it. For the next draft this is really where I need to put most of my focus and I plan on finding a way to turn one of the weaknesses of my story into one of my strengths.
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