Timed Writing Essay Revisions

I read the book Gifted Hands by Greg and Deborah Shaw Lewis. The author's purpose of writing this book was to deliver a very important message. The message was "With God and his help, all things are possible." This message is shown many times throughout this book.

One of the details that supports the message is how Ben Carson became a great neurosurgeon. As a young child, Ben is the "dumbest" in his class and he was often teased by it. Even through the persecution, Ben still has faith in God. One day, all of this began to change. Ben wants to do everything for God's glory. He realize he wants to become a doctor so he prays to God every night and he surrenders his life to him. God helps him to realize that he had to work hard to complete fulfill his glory. After he realizes, he begins to study harder each and everyday and by high school, he is one of the smartest people in the grade. Later on, he goes to Yale University and goes to Johns Hopkins Medical School. This detail supports the author's message because in the beginning, Ben was not the brightest kid and had no motivation. He was the dumbest in class and was made fun of. However, God helped him, so Ben became a very successful neurosurgeon.

The second detail is about the surgery Ben has to perform. He faces an operation that has to deal with Siamese twins. His job is to (along with his crew) split the twins apart safely, so they could live a normal life. In contrast, nobody has ever successfully split conjoined twins conjoined at the back of their heads. It seems like it is an impossible task for Ben to do. Ben and his crew are very nervous and are very stressed out about it. However, Ben has a key factor, God. Before the operation, Ben prayed a lot and asked God to guide him during the operation. God answered his prayer and Ben (along with his crew) successfully split the Siamese twins apart. This detail supports the message because in the beginning, the operation seemed impossible. However, with God, Ben and his crew did the "impossible".

In the beginning, everything seemed impossible for Ben. He wasn't sure what he would become of nor did he care. He didn't really try his best in anything and he just went along with the crowd. However, God was always with him, even during his struggles so Ben became a brilliant pediatric neurosurgeon. That led him to save many people's lives and while doing his work, he spread God's glory. Nobody knows what will happen in the future, or what each and everyone of us will become us, but we know that God is with us and he will always help us succeed.

Metacognitive Blog: And Then There Were None

1. The first draft I wrote was reasonable but it wasn't the best. It had minor grammatical errors along with containing few ideas that were not very strongly supported. When I got my essay revised, I fixed all my grammatical errors. Another think I changed was my second paragraph. Before I got my essay revised, the second paragraph was written in third person, but after I got it checked, I changed it to first. Lastly, in the last paragraph, I added page numbers and sourced strong quotes that would help support my statement.

2. I think sharing my essay with an adult helped me the most for improving my essay. I think it was the most helpful to me because adults are smarter than most high-school kids and they know more than us. They have more things to comment on us and know more ways to improve my writing. Also they take the time to really read over the child's paper and they give key statements that improve the child's writing. When other peers look at it, some of them don't really read it and they just put random stuff down or they just say that the paper was good. When I revised it myself, I didn't realize the mistakes I had written so I didn't know what to correct. That is why I think sharing my essay with an adult helped me the most.

3. What will really help me to continue improving my writing this year is if we got a lot of writing time. Whether if it is writing an essay or writing a story, it still will help me a lot because I would get a lot of practice. By practicing many times, I can realize what I need to work on when I am writing so the next time I write, I could fix it. Also, if we get a lot of writing time, the I could come up with unique ideas and change their writing style to make a story or a writing better.

4. One thing that I really want to grow is limiting unnecessary words in my writing. What it means is when I write, I have so much to say so sometimes I repeat myself over and over again. I want to cut my writing down and make it short but sweet. Another thing I want to improve on is using different variety of word choices. Instead of using the same word many times, I want to use different words when they mean similar meanings.