My Writing Assignment

Going into a new school year after a long summer break can be painful for a middle schooler. After not studying and not remembering anything from the year before we can sometimes question where are skills are at. In this portfolio different projects I have worked on during the year are presented. This show the skill level at the very beginning of school and how they progressed over the course of the year. I can track and look back on all of my works and see where I still need improvement for the future, but also to see how much better of a reader, writer, and speaker I became. I included many varying pieces to show the contrast in assignments and show how every single one contributed to my growth over the year.
Coming into the school year,

Along with reading, I believe my writing skills also improved. I started off the school year knowing that I was not an amazing writer because of all my writing in the past year. Our first big writing assignment was the pre assessment, Lady or Tiger essay. I did not get the best score on this assignment because of the limited time we had. Over the course of the year I learned more about the specifics of what should be put into my writing. I learned how to create a good quote sandwich incorporating all the parts in an organized way. In one of our projects, Whirligig quote integration, we spent a lot of time breaking down how to explain a quote and wrote many examples of how to do so. This helped me finally understand and advance how my paragraphs are written and how make a clear and direct point to the reader. In our post assessment, “Flowers for Algernon” essay, I used all the things I learned throughout the school year to create a better essay. It might have not got a much better grade than my pre assessment, but when I compare both the essays I can see significant improvement over the

From what all of my teachers told me to what my friends said I had an idea of how to become and better listener and speaker. In 8th grade we broke down all of the parts of how to give a speech and how to listen attentively to someone. I became a better listener and speaker over the course of the school year. In our Justice project, I gave a speech regarding the issue to the entire class. I had to make sure to look at the students in the class and to remember most of the speech without continuously looking down at my paper. The information I was trying to get across when presenting had to be conveyed in a way that was engaging to the listener so they did not zone out. During this project I also had to listen to other groups’ speeches and presentations. I learned how to stay alert and to not zone out and stop listening. Another time when I had to present in front of the class was our poetry speak out. I had to read my poem to the class while being judged on it because it was a mini contest. We had to pick which poem we liked best to advance to the next round. This put more pressure on the speaker and made them even more nervous. I was extremely scared to share out my poem, but doing so it was able to help me get over the fear of sharing a poem in front of an audience. I pushed through my boundaries which will help me in the future because I will know that I have had experience doing it before and won’t be as scared. I also had