Essay Reflection (Bacon's Rebellion)

The Bacon's Rebellion started out pretty enjoyable but ended quite stressfully. I really like writing and I was excited to write about a thesis that I got to choose (what I was interested in), on the broad subject of Bacon's Rebellion. However, it was difficult for me because this is the first time I've written an essay with an unspecified length, because last year, almost 100% of the time, I always had to write those dull five-paragraph essays. Thankfully, before we got started on this big essay project, I learned a lot about writing. So far, this year, although I've only been in this class for half of a quarter, I've learned more about writing than I have any year of high school. I actually found the “They Say/ I Say” book very helpful, though I will admit I was quite skeptical about it after I had read the preface and intro. I incorporated the new knowledge and templates I had learned into my Bacon's Rebellion essay, so I think that it is a better essay than anything I wrote in high school. It was very refreshing to be able to write about Bacon's Rebellion on a personal level and not in a certain format, whereas the five paragraph essays I wrote formerly were all impersonal and followed the same exact format every single time...

I did a lot of research for this essay, using only JSTOR searches and no Internet source (which Craig said was okay). I even used Hara Brook as a resource, but that wound up being unhelpful (she really tried though, it just wasn't what I needed). What I learned about writing about history from this essay is that there are so many different views on one issue (Bacon's Rebellion), and to make a good argument, you should include a few of them, but you probably couldn't include all of them considering how many different people have written documents on this single event. I learned writing about history can actually be fun! If you put your opinion into it (a supported and discussed opinion, that is), and put passion into your writing, then, yeah, I think history can be pretty fun to write about.

There was one thing I was disappointed about though. I'm pretty sure I turned everything in onto, until I spaced out on the draft for Craig to see, and I posted it a day late! But I'm pretty sure that was the first mistake I made and Craig said that I was at a 70-75% and “it can only go downhill from there”...that hurt my feelings...And I felt kind of angry, wondering where I went wrong, why was I suddenly doing so badly...I thought I was doing well before, then suddenly it was destroyed...I began my essay feelings pretty good about it, but in the end, I was really nervous to turn it in.

Finally, I have to thank Craig for emailing me back on Saturday, because I was SO worried I wouldn't get feedback, since he had said, “I don't want your weekend stress to become my weekend stress.”