Diana Katsikaris 

Blue Block 

1/13

Term 2: Extra Credit

          A writing assignment from this term in which we used formative assessment was the Nationalism Essay. I completed four drafts, the first draft, the draft with feedback from my peers during the writing workshop, the draft on paragraph one from Ms. Shapero, and then the final draft. The sources of my feedback were from a peer in writing workshop, Ms. Shapero, a teacher from the history lab and my mom, who read over the final product. The most common types of feedback I received were being too vague, and needing to clarify, and to eliminate unnecessary words in my writing. In my later drafts, this feedback was addressed by re-reading my paper multiple times, searching for dead words, and crossing out the unnecessary words as well. Also, trying to spread out my ideas instead of bunching them up in one vague sentence. To prevent similar mistakes in my future writing, I will constantly re-read my paper checking for dead words, and work sentence by sentence in order to spread out my ideas and avoid being vague. 

One specific example involving all of my drafts in which I improved in my writing because of formative assessment was the process of crafting a decent thesis statement that had a factual and judgmental statement. In my first draft my thesis was: “By broadcasting the ideas of change to becoming a free and independent nation, the recognition of the individual is emphasized through individuality and liberty, which is what divided and conquered the necessary changes in each nation.” After visiting the lab my thesis statement was now: “By broadcasting the ideas of change as a process to becoming a free and independent nation, the recognition of the individual is emphasized through individuality and liberty which is what allowed the necessary changes in each nation to be made.” My thesis was still vague and was too long, so after day to in the writing workshop it was edited to be: “Although nationalism moved away from the focus of military power, it did however recognize the individual, who was emphasized through individuality and liberty which allowed governmental changes to be made throughout the nation.” Then, after being edited by Ms. Shapero, my final thesis statement after the feedback revision portion of the assignment read: “Although Nationalism brought a decline in military power, it placed an emphasis on the individual, who aimed for liberty, mutually beneficial relationships, republics, and united fatherlands in their new nations.” Through the process of formative assessment, my thesis statement became more detailed and contained a factual statement: “who aimed for liberty, mutually beneficial relationships, republics and united fatherlands in their new nations,” and a judgmental statement: “Although Nationalism brought a decline in military power, it placed emphasis on the individual.” The process of formative assessment helped me to improve my thesis statement by narrowing it down to specifics, and moving away from being vague.