Semester One
After conferencing with Ashley about my writing and my essay on The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, we created personal writing goals to work on throughout the semester.
1) One goal of mine is to create more meaningful analysis in my essays, and go more in depth with my analysis. A place in my essay where I could have gone further in depth would be here, where I said: " In the long run, transcendentalism, or thinking outside of the physical world is an important aspect to living, and can help open up the eyes of the beholder by showing how there is so much more to life than what we see with our eyes. Transcendentalism was extremely important to Henry David Thoreau and by far was one of the most significant things he had taught during his life, and is still taught and seen today around the world." To bring more meaning to this statement and gather the paragraph as a whole, I could have said, " Moreover, transcendentalism can be very important to have in our everyday lives because it can spark new ideas and create a new life meaning, which could bring those who believe in this way of thinking to a happier, more purposeful existence. Because of this, transcendentalism was valuable to Henry David Thoreau, as he lived a much more significant life and strove to teach other how to live this way.
2) Another writing goal of mine is to work on the streamlining my word choices to enhance clarity and reduce repetition. A place in my essay where I had repetitive word choice and words that did not fit into the sentence was: "Of all of the things that Henry Thoreau has been known for, one of the most important things that he has taught the world is to not become a bystander and live under something you truly do not believe in, and not to wait for others to agree with you to make something that you want to happen, happen." Instead of this, I could have said " Of all of the aspects for which Henry Thoreau has been known, the most important instruction he taught the world is to not become a bystander and live under something you truly do not believe in. Even more, Henry taught to not wait for others to agree with you to and instead, take things into your own hands."
3) The last writing goal of mine is to tie together my main argument, and create a more cohesive argument. My thesis in my first article was unspecific, and did not have something that tied it all together. This was my first thesis statement: "In the final analysis, the most important thing to take away from Thoreau’s life is to stand against what you do not believe in and to act immediately, think like a transcendentalist by thinking outside of the boundaries, and be your own individual before anyone else." My new thesis statement, with a statement that ties the controversy together is: "The most important ideas to take away from Thoreau’s life is to stand against what you do not believe in by acting immediately, and think like a transcendentalist by thinking outside of the boundaries, while being your own individual. According to Henry David Thoreau, if all of these were achieved, one would strive towards justice, and find what it just and unjust in our society"