At the beginning of the year I wasnt confident when we had to write essays or long papers, but now I know more about how to write them. I've acquired quite a few essay skills that have made me much more successful when I've had to write an essay. One of those skills is understanding the stucture of an essay. I learned about chunks and also about how to properly embedd quotes. Another skill that I have learned is to constantly refer back to your thesis in order to back up what you are trying to get the reader to believe.
Although I have become much stronger at writing essays I still have a few weaknesses that I have had for a while. One of those is having a weak hook. In middle school we were able to write a question for a hook but now that we are in high school, we can't. It is very easy to write a hook in question form but hooks that are not in that form are usually better even though they take longer to think about/write. Another weakness that I have when I am writing a paper is that may conclusions are too general. I've always not been good at writing a conclusion. For example, I would always start a conclusion with "In conclusion, ..." and I still end up beginning my essays like that or using other words like "Overall". Conclusions are supposed to leave a strong feeling with the reader, however, I don't think my conclusion are like that.