"Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous."
W. Somerset Maugham
List and categorize the formal writing assignments that you have composed this year.
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It is now time to look back and to ask yourself a few questions: "Where have I been?" "Where am I now?" and "Where am I going?"
Select the four compositions from the above list that best represent you as a writer. Remember that there are several modes of written discourse—personal, descriptive, narrative, expository, persuasive—so vary your choices in order to present a fuller picture of your experiences and abilities. Answer the following questions in a reflective essay, citing examples from your four selections to support your statements.
1. What does writing offer you?
2. What are your strengths as a writer?
3. What difficulties have you experienced as a writer?
4. What tool(s) help you most in your writing?
5. Why have you selected these four pieces as representative of you (your writing)?
6. What are your writing goals for the future?
"Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain."Elie Wiesel