Stefano Todaro
Mrs. Bouslog
College Prep. Comp.
December 20, 2013
Evaluation of Myself as a Writer
“Stefano, math just isn’t your strong suit,” said my dad. “I don’t think it’s possible for you to get
an A in a single one of those damn classes.”
He was right. I was, and still am, horrible at math. I’m so terrible at math that I’m not even
taking a full year of math classes as a senior. Numbers just don’t click with me. Every time a math
teacher tries explaining notes and starts bringing up numbers, they just fly right by me. I simply do not
care. Numbers don’t like me, and I definitely do not like numbers. However, I do like words, and
hopefully words are beginning to warm up to me. English class has, and always will be my strongest
class in school. Words click with me. Sentences flow out of me like notes out of a singer’s mouth.
Writing has been a passion of mine since 1st grade, and is still a passion of mine to this day. Senior year
has been my best year when it comes to good writing. My pre-writing, organization, development, and
style are all reasons why my essays have been successful, and why I have matured greatly as a writer.
The first step in making a good essay is pre-writing. Without a good plan and without a good
outline your paper will suck. It’s as simple as that. My pre-writing skills this year have improved a lot.
For the “Consumer Reports: Chips” essay, we needed to fill out a chart in order to describe certain
criteria of the chips. I succeeded at this because I wrote in depth descriptions about everything I
experienced while eating the chips. I jotted down everything from the way the chip crumbled, to how I
was able to feel the salt on my tongue. When it came time to writing the actual essay it came so easily
because my descriptions were very well-prepared and well written. Another pre-writing element I was
good at was creating a timeline for our reflective essays. I needed to write down important events that
took place within a certain event. My event was my brother leaving for college. I completely filled up
my timeline. I included details such as my brother unpacking a lamp, to me not crying right away, to me
crying on the way back home from his college. Since I included so many details on my timeline, I was
able to include many in my paper, making it powerful and memorable. My final good example of prewriting would have to be the chart I filled out in my investigative essay titled “Monsters”. I filled out the
chart in chronological order and included the most important events of the divorce. When I first
thought of my topic for this essay I wasn’t exactly sure what information to put in it. I did such an
excellent job of filling out my chart that I was able to know exactly what events to describe, and in what
order to put them in. I started when I first saw my dad looking for jobs, up until my middle school years.
My pre-writing helped me set the stage for my powerful essays that quickly followed.
All essays need to begin with pre-writing, but what comes next is organization. I realized that I
needed to create impactful introductions and conclusions that tied up nicely. My organization of the
intro and conclusion in my beautiful/ugly essay was particularly well done. I started it all off by
describing my trek down into my basement. My routine and emotions were described as I made my
way down the steps. The remainder of the essay included my routine and how I did everything. I
describe things in my basement that are very important to me. Then I get to my conclusion. My
conclusion shows me walking back up the stairs ready to leave. I treat the items as if they were people,
which make the essay even more memorable. The paper concludes with me taking the final steps up
and shutting the door. I did an excellent job with the organization on this piece because the intro and
conclusion connect well and because they help shape up my routine that I am trying to describe. My
organization also works very well in our consumer reports essays. I start it all off by explaining how if
you bring bad chips to a holiday gathering, you will be shunned for the remainder of the evening. This is
a humorous element that draws a reader in. While the remaining parts of the essay aren’t as
entertaining, they are still very informative. In order to bring the reader back in, and to leave them
satisfied, I decided to tie in the conclusion with the intro by making the ending humorous as well. Great
Value chips were the worst rated so I decided to say that if you bring those chips to the gathering, you
will not be invited next year. Ending the essay with humor was important because it started with
humor. The final good example of organization was in my paper, “I’m Busy”. The real power from this
paper is from the essay both starting and ending with specific scenes. I included dialogue from a little
fight my brother and I had while trying to build a chair to start the whole thing off. I decided that it
would be a good idea to end the paper with dialogue and a scene as well. Doing this made it all very
cohesive. Ending the paper with a scene of us fighting, and eventually getting along again, made the
story more relatable and powerful.
While my organization was very successful in all of my papers, it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t have
good development and details. The specific details I include in all of my papers really brings out more
meaning and makes the essays worth reading. The article “How to Say Nothing in 500 Words,” _______________________________________________________________. This is critical. In order to
make an essay memorable and meaningful, you need to slip out of abstraction and give concrete
examples and details; show don’t tell. I successfully accomplish this in my paper titled “Monsters”.
Throughout the essay, I talk about struggling with school work a lot. I had nobody to help me. What
really made this point come through was the fact that I included a specific example. There was nobody
to help me understand the chapter on the Anasazi Native American tribe. Since I mentioned what I
specifically needed help on, the reader felt more connected. One of my other good examples of detail is
in my reflective essay. The main point of the essay was that I didn’t spend as much time with my
brother as I should’ve, and that I was selfish. If I were to just say that nobody would care. What made
the reader care was that I told a real story of my brother inviting me to hangout with him and his friend.
He said we would play video games, eat and have a good time. After he told me that, I went upstairs
and called my friend to pick me up. This was a strong detail because it showed how truly cold hearted I
was. Without this example, my theme would have gotten lost. The first essay I wrote for this class
included good details as well. Jay-Z is an important figure in my life, and I mentioned everything he did
that inspired me. One of the things that inspired me was that he did things other than rap. I could’ve
simply left it at that and been done with it; however, I decided to add detail. I mentioned that he
stepped out of his comfort zone and was a producer on a video game and a movie. This detail shows
how talented he really is. If I were to leave out this detail then the depth of his talent would have been
lost.
The main criterion that makes me fully proud of what I wrote is my style. The style is what
makes it an essay by Stefano Todaro. Nobody else can write the way I do because I have my own style
and my own voice. No English teacher wants the read the same boring, cookie-cutter essay every year.
In order to help my teachers out, I add style so reading my essays will be a good experience. My style
comes out in “My Palace” because I successfully used many metaphors. One in particular that was
commented on was, “my basement is my own personal airplane that takes me anywhere I want to go,
and it’s my family that comforts me when I’m upset.” This adds life to the paper. My metaphor added
color and showed how much I love my basement. In stead of saying I go to the basement when I’m
upset, I say that it is my family because it comforts me when I get upset. Another example of good style
is found in my reflective essay. The essay ends with Frank and I playing video games, him getting mad at
me, and then me asking him if we can hangout sometime soon. I add style to this because I describe the
whole event in depth. I include everything from how we lost in the video game, to the hug we
exchanged, to him throwing me on the ground. Nobody else could write this paper because they
wouldn’t be able to add the style and story that I injected into the ending of the paper. The style I have
in the intro and conclusion of “Monsters” is what I am most proud of. The essay begins with me looking
over my dad’s shoulder. He is on monster.com looking for a new job. My young, naïve self asked why
he was looking at monsters. Why would anybody want to look at monsters? This gives the entire essay
an underlying theme, divorce is a monster. This metaphor I found to be extremely successful. What
makes this style element work even better is that I concluded the whole paper with the same theme.
My last line “I didn’t let the monsters scare me, I kept them under my bed,” is the most powerful I’ve
written all year. The monster was a metaphor for divorce, and I was out of the ordinary because the
monster of divorce didn’t have a negative effect on me. To add to the fact that I was still young, I
included that I kept them under my bed, which is where most young kids believe monsters hide.
I was born with low self-esteem. I never think that I’m good enough, or that I’m smart enough.
This outlook I had on life and school changed just this year. My writing has always been good, but it has
never been this great. These topics and this teacher helped me create essays that were not successful
academically, but were successful emotionally. I write for a purpose, and that purpose isn’t to receive a
good grade, it is to receive meaning. The pre-writing, organization, development, and style that were all
included in my essays this semester have all been greater than I expected. I have successfully included
those four criteria I mentioned earlier in all of my papers; however, that isn’t what is most important.
Noam Shpancer puts it perfectly in his article “Seven Tips for Writing a Good Paper,” _______________________________________________________________________I have found my
voice and was able to show my perspective on life in all of my essays. Who cares if I can’t an A in a math
class, why does it matter if I’m not taking any science this year? Math and science hasn’t helped me find
myself; writing has.