Throughout my time as an ENG4U student, I have developed many new skills and improved my overall approach to writing. I plan to take these techniques and new skills and apply them in my future at university and even beyond that into the real world. This course has taught me so much and has been very different from other English courses I have taken, and because of the great detail of feedback and suggestions, I have seen improvements in the pieces I am writing and overall grades. Everything from basic language features to MLA format to different styles of assignments, such as creative writing, reviews, adaptions, discussions and essays, I feel much more capable of creating a good writing piece that I am comfortable sharing here on my website.
My website The Power of Journalism has been a great outlet for me to share my progress throughout the course as well as the work I feel most proud of. I wanted this website to resemble me as much as possible by only publishing work I felt good about and even just the vibe you get from my website. I see myself as a very organized and simple person. I don't like clutter and I keep things very minimalistic in my real life so I wanted that part of my life to be present in this website. The simple font and crisp lines were a specific choice to maintain a clean and polished look for my workspace. Another really important part of my website and one of my favourite additions to the layout of the website is the quotation I included on the home page. Motivational quotes can be a great reminder of what we are capable of and that we can get through tough times or challenges.
ENG4U has provided me with many challenges along the way. I have read two novels, analyzed a Shakespeare play, learned proper MLA format, and even how to look for academic sources. However, all the challenges helped me improve as a writer and if anything have helped me feel more prepared for my post-secondary plans. Below are the assessments and writing pieces that I am most proud of.
Comparing the themes of loyalty and love in Romeo and Juliet was the first essay assignment in the ENG4U course, and to be honest it was a bit of an intimidating project for me. Throughout my whole high school experience and with the interference of the pandemic, I never truly learn about Shakespeare or ever had to complete assessments on his work, so having such a big project that is worth so much was a bit scary. However, I ended up enjoying the process of the essay and everything that it entailed. I felt the poster presentation was a great way to prepare and collect important information and ideas for the essay which helped me get my foundation started. This essay was also a great learning experience for me as this was the first time we used academic sources to support our ideas. I had never learned how to find reliable secondary sources and with the use of JSTOR, I now feel capable of finding viable work, written by scholars and extremely credible publishing agencies to back up my work. This is a very important skill to have for university and I am very grateful that I got the chance to learn and apply this new skill in ENG4U.
2. The Hate U Give - Discussion 5
Reading The Hate U Give was one of my favourite things we did in the ENG4U course. I looked forward to our discussions each week and hearing the thoughts of my other classmates. I felt like I saw lots of growth within myself and my answers as we got deeper into the novel. Before this course, I never really paid attention to the different features or styles of writing the author would use, and even in my rubrics for the first couple of discussions one of the notes would always say focus on the narrative styles and language features being used. I always struggled to pick them out in the novel but I found as we went on I got better at finding them and felt more comfortable sharing with the class what features I was seeing. I also recognized the importance of these features and how identifying and talking about them can be extremely helpful in understanding and making connections in the story. I am proud of my growth and ability to use these language and structural writing features and I plan to keep applying this new skill as I am reading and writing in the future.
Review writing was one of the first methods we completed in ENG4U. This was a new style of writing that I had never tried before so I came in with no experience at all. I felt that I gained a lot of knowledge about this style of writing such as no use of personal pronouns, limiting biased responses, writing formally and providing examples and evidence to support your review. All of these things combined work together to create a good review and I feel that in my review on the TaylorMade Performance Lab, I was able to do that. I felt confident about what I was reviewing because I have experienced the performance lab myself. I was able to provide my opinion on the service with supporting ideas and facts to back it up and ended up with a mark that I was proud of. I believe that review writing is going to come in handy in the future so I am happy this course has taught me what elements are needed for the perfect review.
4. Lord of The Flies Independent Study Project
My ISP presentation is another assessment that I am proud of. It was a big task and involved reading a novel in a short amount of time which I am not used to doing, so that was a challenge for me. However, I felt that the ISP was a great way to bring together all the concepts from the course and apply what we had learned. This ISP allowed me to get that much more practice with identifying language features and structural features throughout the novel I chose, as well as once again practicing my ability to cite sources correctly and find secondary sources to back up all my answers. The length of the assignment also brought a bit of a challenge as that meant we had to present for a long amount of time, but I am grateful for the opportunity to have classmates and a space to practice speaking in front of an audience and finding a way to present my work comfortably.
The Unseen Prose assessment was one of the most challenging assessments for me throughout the course. I found it difficult to come up with ideas and answer the question given not having any prior knowledge or background on the book. When you only have two pages of information, your response requires some amount of imagination and creativity. This assessment specifically, taught me the importance of supporting your ideas with evidence. Considering there is limited information, it is important to show which specific parts of the extract sparked certain ideas. Then, when you have all your pieces of evidence you can easily link it back to your thesis, having a full circle of strong ideas with quotations and specific examples in place to back it up. I am proud of the quotations I chose to support my thesis, even with very little knowledge of the story. This has shown me that focusing on small details and paying attention to any connections can help elevate your work and possibly be very useful to support your ideas.
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