REFLECTION

PART I
The topic of my personal memoir was my Atlanta Mission Trip that I took over the summer with my youth group. My second piece was written about the hypocrisy of Hester by Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter. My third piece was based on the character Mary Warren from the play The Crucible. My fourth piece was an essay based on a personal nature experience that I related to Emerson and Thoreau's way of thinking.
When I was writing my personal memoir I was really trying to remember all the sensory details and memories from my trip. In writing "The Scarlet Letter: The Hypocrisy of Hester" I was trying to distinguish just exactly what is was that made Dimmesdale tick. Through my piece on Mary Warren, the main point I was trying to convery was all the different sides or personalities of Mary Warren were demonstrated in the play. In my final nature essay, my main purpose for writing it was to relate my modern experiences with the historical Emerson and Thoreau's perspectives.
The thoughts that were running through my head when I was writing each of these pieces were very numerous. While writing "Only in Atlanta" I was trying to capture the experience that I had working with underprivelaged children in Atlanta on paper. The thoughts of my nature essay followed the same type of writing, it captured another memory in a different manor. My nature essay was less about recalling an experience as much as using sensory details to describe the feeling of my experience at the beach. In both the "The Scarlet Letter: The Hypocrisy of Hester" and "Crucible Metaphor Essays" my thought process was simply to produce a good character analysis from my opinion.
Once I look back at my essays that I have written, I realize that couple of the pieces have some similar characteristics. My nature essay and personal memoir are definitely connected in that they are both personal recounts of what I saw and what I felt. None else knows how I feel, enough so that they could write it down and it and be correct. Also, the remaining two essays that I composed were based on a form of character analysis. Each one shows a personal understanding of the characters in the book and the ways that I related to the them.
I've disovered that through my writing processes this year I have noticed things are a little bit different for me. Colons, semi-colons, and commas used to be a source of trouble, but now I feel that I developed a better sense of when it is appropriate to use them. Another thing I've noticed is that I'm able to develop my ideas more. It's not that I couldn't develop my ideas before, it's that I now feel as if my ideas are more elaborate. I've really tried to step outside the "cooky-cutter" ways of writing. Finally, I've notice that I've been able to pick out and correct a lot more grammatical errors. Sometimes I'll start writing and just get so into it and start going so fast that my thoughts will end up on the page but not necessarily in the correct format. Basically, I get what I want to say written down before my brain discloses the thought, then go back and make sure the words are written in the way they should be.

PART 2
My first drafts ended up needing a lot more work than I thought they would need. Even though they weren't perfect the first time around, I believe that's the way it should be; as they say, "Rome wasn't built in a day." The first major revision was in my Scarlet Letter essay. My contributors all unanimously agreed that I needed to develop my ideas about hyprocrisy when I was describing Hester and Dimmesdale. Also, I decided to add more book reference when I was talking about Dimmesdale. The Scarlet Letter: The Hypocrisy of Hester
In my second piece, I was able make some revisions also. I thought I had done a well enough job of presenting my thoughts but my callaborators thought differently. This is the point where I came in and added some relationship details between my experience and Emerson and Thoreau's. Also, I believe this case in partcular is an excellent example of what I was talking about in part 1 about developing ideas. Here I thought that the piece was complete, but when another person comes in and reads it, they see what it's lacking. By having people help me out, I'm able to learn where I'm going wrong in writing. This has been extrememly benneficial. Nature Essay: Some Beach, Somewhere

PART 3
One of my classmates that I noticed in particular was Eric Brujell. Through reading his piece I felt like I could relate with his loss of grandfather. I personally lost my grandfather this year so I could see how important it was for Eric to recall a positive memory of his grandfather. It also let me see a more sensitive side of Eric that I think that he usually doesn't like to show. In reading this memoir I learned some things about Eric that I didn't know. I think that's what you are suppose to accomplish when writing a personal memoir. Eric's Personal Memoir
The second person I chose was Luke Mostellar. The thing I liked best about Luke's essay was his mechanics. His special attention to detail led to me to feel like I was in the story. This is especially true because I'm not even Luke's class so I wasn't there to experience what Luke's class did. Luke definitely has a talent for writing. Luke's October 11th Post
Finally, the third person that I selected was Cauley Simmons. When I read her story "Lizzy" I couldn't help but kind of frown at her sad story. Before the end I was smiling though. Cauley's story takes you on emotional rollercoaster. She uses a great deal of suspense when she toils with your emotions. she makes you wonder if she going to make friends at her new school. Then she breaks her heart when she tells you Lizzy treats her. Finally, Cauley makes you laugh when you disover that Cauley and Lizzy could put their differences aside and became friends. Her special attention to details also caught my eye. For example, when describes the chain reaction that caused her to fall on Lizzy and then again when she discusses the long process that her and Lizzy had to experience to become friends. Overall, this is an exceptional story of a classic friendship. Cauley's "Lizzy"