This year in Language Arts, I developed the ability to use strong diction in my writing so that the overall piece was enhanced. Diction is the usage of using a higher level of word choice in your writing. Before this year, I had my moments were diction was not strong and I didn’t really revise for it but now revising words to see if they can have stronger diction, is now part of my revising process. Also, I now have an appreciation for diction because at first I thought it was a waste to revise. Now, I understand that it improves the overall flow of your writing and it makes your writing read in a professional fashion. Again, if it was not for this year putting emphasize on diction I would not realize how diction is an important tool in the writing world.

 

            One endeavor that pushed the development of me using stronger diction is the Snapshot Memoir. The purpose of the project was for us, tenth grade class, to practice the ability to write about our personal experiences in a creative way. The process of creating the memoir started when we brainstormed ideas of a memorable event in our lives. Then we created six to seven drafts that were revised to make sure we included the key requirements of the memoir, which were diction, imagery, and having a strong or intriguing opening and ending. Imagery was a main concept during this process because with imagery you are supposed to be descriptive to a point where the reader can basically see, feel, and touch what you are describing since the detail should relate to the reader’s five senses. Also, another key term was having a strong opening and ending. It is important because you want to catch the reader’s attention and make them want to read your writing and also make them feel complete when they are finished reading your writing.  The products that were created in this process was the multiple drafts and the final draft of your memoir.

 

            An artifact from the Snapshot Memoir, is the final draft. The final draft is a great example of my growth because I was able to incorporate imagery, opening and ending, and most importantly great overall diction in the piece.  For example, I included this sentence: “Then, the beat dropped, and we started to sway to the music while the crowd turned into waves of the ocean.” This sentence demonstrates great diction by using the word “sway” since it is a word that describes a movement without just saying moving back and forth. It also shows imagery by using the metaphor “the crowd turned into waves of the ocean” this phrase allows the reader to visualize how a natural crowd in a performance would move without just simply telling the action. In addition, in this artifact I even exhibit a strong opening statement. “The atmosphere was electric.” With that simple sentence I still grab the reader’s attention by describing how I felt during that specific moment.

 

            Another endeavor, contributed to my diction being improved is the Letter to Congressmen Unit.  The purpose of the unit was to practice writing persuasive pieces of work and learning how to form a proper argument using evidence. The process of this work included that we formed our thesis due to worksheet that allowed us to pick our position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which the letter was about. Then we formed our introduction, body, and conclusion paragraph one at a time, so we could slowly build up our argument. Then our Language Arts teacher, Ms. Reid, checked for grammatical mistakes while our World History teacher, Mr. Grieve, checked our letter for History content since the unit was a joined project. After, we went through the “checkpoints” by our teachers we uploaded the final draft and then mailed our letters to our congress representative. The products that were made in this process was the worksheet that helped us create our thesis, the multiple drafts of the letter, and then the final draft of the letter that we sent off to our congressmen.

 

            An artifact from the Letter to Congressman Unit, is also the final draft. This artifact helped me display my overall growth statement because it included many sentences that my use of diction was present. For instance, this sentence: “This conflict has been evolving ever since the Ottoman Empire. In fact, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been perpetuated by constant hate, mistrust, wars like the Six Day War, and even terrorism from organizations like Hamas.” I used diction by including the words “perpetuated” and “mistrust.” Before my growth, I would use just say going on and on or doubt but as you can see in this example, I improved my word choice by using the words perpetuated and mistrust. In this artifact, I even included some other key terms such as opening and ending and comma usage. I practiced good comma usage by making sure after every transitioning word and introductory prepositional I place comma after it. For example, in this sentence: “With this in mind, a two-state solution allows dual citizenship, so Palestinians and Israelis can vote and live among the country they prefer.” I place the comma after the transitioning phrase and this sentence is a good example of a concluding sentence since it reiterates my thesis statement. A final example of me growing in my diction usage is when I included this sentence: “That was only possible because the U.S. started to distinguish Palestine as a potential state.” When I used the word distinguish instead of a simplified word like separate to stress my point that I was trying to address in the previous sentence.