Reflection on Illustation Essay

As I begin to reflect on my first illustration essay after being out of school for over 30 years, there are several points that immediately come to my mind. I am not sure if I even knew what an illustration essay was until we began talking about it in class. I really liked the way our teacher eased us into the assignment using magazine advertisements. Actually, it was a lot of fun for me to choose an advertisement, analyze the content, color and setting, and then develop and organize an essay based on my perceptions. Although I have looked at many advertisements in my lifetime, this is the first time I have ever truly dissected one. Today, each time I look at an advertisement, I find myself thinking about the concepts we have discussed in class relating to color, setting, character and audience. In regards to my specific paper, I was pleased that I was able to define the audience and purpose, and to develop ideas that supported my thesis statement. Initially, I struggled with the thesis statement, and it was difficult for me to get that first sentence down on paper. However, once I was able to capture my original thoughts on paper, more and more ideas began to flow into my mind. My biggest challenge in becoming a proficient writer at this point is being able to organize my thoughts into clear and concise statements. Based on the feedback from my illustration essay, I really need to work on connecting the introduction, the topic sentences and the conclusion back to the thesis statement. It is also evident that I need to improve my word choices and sentence structure. I do feel that I am improving in this area; however, I am not nearly as proficient at this as I want to be. Another deficient area where I need work is on grammar, spelling, and punctuation. After all, we can write a wonderful paper with lots of interesting ideas, but if we have errors in these areas, it is not a quality essay. My goals for the Comparison and Contrast Essay is to insure that I have a strong, well developed thesis statement, and to make sure I connect each paragraph and topic sentence back to this argument. Another major goal for this next paper is to create clear, focused, and concise sentences that have no grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors. Go for it Carrie!!