Reflect on the Portfolio
Read over your finished writing product and think about these questions. Write your reflections in your journal.
Think about the story map you created at the beginning of the Portfolio. How did thinking about your audience and purpose help to direct your writing?
How does your final draft compare to your first draft? What words did you change? What elements of your narrative—characters, setting, problem, theme—did you change? How did the changes you made improve your narrative?
The author Stephen King once said, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” How does the reading you do affect your ability to write well? How does the writing you do improve as you keep at it? Explain how reading and writing have affected your own writing.
Thinking about my audience and purpose at the beginning of the Portfolio definitely helped to guide my writing. It made me consider what tone and language to use, as well as what kind of story would be most engaging for my intended readers. This focus on audience and purpose kept me on track and prevented me from going off on tangents that would not have served the overall narrative.
Comparing my final draft to my first draft, I can see a lot of changes that I made throughout the writing process. I changed specific words and phrases to make the writing more descriptive and engaging. I also made changes to elements of the narrative such as character development and plot progression. These changes helped to deepen the story and make it more compelling overall.
Reading definitely has a huge impact on my ability to write well. By reading widely, I am exposed to different writing styles, voices, and techniques that I can then incorporate into my own writing. It helps me to broaden my vocabulary, develop my own voice, and understand how to structure a narrative effectively. The more I read, the more I learn about storytelling and how to craft engaging narratives.
In terms of writing, practice is key. The more I write, the better I become at crafting sentences, developing characters, and creating tension in a story. Writing regularly helps me to refine my skills, experiment with different techniques, and ultimately improve as a writer. It allows me to put into practice what I have learned from reading and see how it translates into my own writing. Overall, both reading and writing have played crucial roles in shaping my writing abilities and helping me to grow as a writer.