When you think of personal writing, what do you think of? I always think of deep and reflective writing. I think that the best kind of writing is something that doesn’t apply to anyone but the author. The more deep and reflective that the writing is, the more personal it is. I have always wanted to be able to write personally. It always seemed so much better to write just a short amount of thoughtful writing, then a whole story of surface level writing. At the beginning of the year, I did not like writing. I went through the motions, never thinking about what I was writing. I realized that if I was going to ever enjoy writing I would have to get deeper. I started using this more-thoughtful mindset and my writing changed. The other day I was looking back and comparing my older entries with my newer entries. I think the difference shows my growth very well.

 

An entry that I think is passive and not thoughtful is entry four of my notebook. It is very short, only half a page. It doesn’t ever dig deep. The entry is about if it is okay, or not okay to lie. This is an entry that could have been much more thoughtful. I could have jumped in and told stories and connected it to my life, but instead I kept everything simple. On the other side of the spectrum, I have entry twenty-one. The entry is about fear. I talk about how my biggest fear is failure. I connect it to my life through stories. This shows thoughtfulness because sometimes it isn’t easy to tell stories. They can be embarrassing because people grow up and change. They look back on their lives and wish that they had made better choices. It is hard to admit things we’ve done wrong or what we are afraid of. Admitting things like that makes you have to think about it more, in turn making thoughtful writing.

 

I also used this kind of writing in my Independent Reading Project. We had to read a book and then collect ten sentences that made us think about something or draw a connection. At first I just picked random sentences. I got an okay grade but I still wanted more. I wasn’t getting anything out of my work. On my next IRP I really thought deeply while I was reading. I discovered new things and I made personal connections. By thinking deeper about the book I found that there was a much deeper theme. The theme is like the subject. The theme of my book was growing up and making choices. This is the theme because it is what the whole story ties back to. It is constantly an underlying subject. Another thing I learned from deep thinking is cognitive reading strategies. This is how you read the book. Reading versus cognitive reading all depends on how you approach reading. When you are reading you aren’t thinking you are just reading something to get it done. Cognitive reading is thinking about the story or passage before you read it, while you are reading it and after you have read it. I practiced this in my IRP because I wasn’t getting anything out of it. I started thinking more and eventually I got good at it. This is one way I grew in comprehension.

 

This is important because I want to be an author when I get older and writing without thought is not something that shows my personality. If I get a job other than that I will still have to think about what I’m doing. In high school and college I will need to reflect personal emotions through writing in order to convey my feelings and understanding on a topic. I am still growing in thoughtfulness. I think about things a little deeper every day and eventually I will be a pro at it.