At the beginning of this semester, I signed up for English Composition 1 in hopes of passing, because I had done well in my AP literature class that I had taken for 4 months previously. the semester. I was always taught to have a good idea and develop it, but the very basics of writing an essay—its unity, coherence, and flow were thrown out the window—were never thought through. After receiving a thorough review of my sentence structure and grammar for my first article, I quickly realized that although I could write a good 200 word article. I lacked the grammatical skills; the patience, interest, and raw talent to create a college-level essay. My focus was completely shifted from getting the highest possible grade in class to improving my identity as a writer; Whatever grade I got, I was willing to take it. Building an essay is like building a good house; it takes time and patience. My portfolio shows everything I have. Our first essay required us to write a descriptive summary of a day or event in our life and it had to be thoughtful in some way; it was a great foundation for developing our skills as writers. So I tried to find a single subject on which to focus my thesis but I lacked refinement because I was unable to unify the structure of my sentences. Even though I had decided to focus my essay on fatigue, I still found myself creating unnecessary and undescriptive sentences such as "it was a beautiful day, the sky was blue." Before starting this course, such sentences were sufficient as descriptive sentences, although they were completely separate from the main thesis. I learned that the basis of a good essay is a good thesis, because a thesis determined the structure - the... middle of the article...... at first I couldn't recognize the difference between a final draft and a finished article. A finished document is supposed to be free of minor errors; I had commas everywhere, even though I had revised my article it still wasn't doing enough proofreading. Even though I got an 80 on essay 4, I was happy that there was a big distinction between the ab paper and the ad paper. Building my house was difficult and painful, but I had to learn to be prepared to pick up a brick one in one, making sure the foundation was secure from the bottom up. Sometimes I have had to tear the house down and start all over again, but reflecting on my many failures in creating this house; it was a little depressing, but rewarding to know that I succeeded because of my repeated failures. Luckily, I had a teacher who was willing to teach me and many others the basics of building their home..