My Brain Explained 2.0

Margaret Kops-Kuveke

Context and Reflection

The assignment I have chosen to revise and share with you was My Brain Explained. I wrote this in the beginning of the year, about nine months ago. In this piece, I spoke about my brain and how it works, the learning styles that come with that, and the “type of smart” I am. Looking back, I still agree with what I wrote, but how I wrote this piece was terrible. I’ve chosen this piece for precisely this reason. I know that my skills as a writer have really grown a lot throughout this year, and I also know that I could really change this work to make it much better. There were a lot of elements to this piece that I had to change. First of all, my voice was almost non-existent. I was bored reading it, and I knew that this would really crush this piece. I decided to put in a lot of new writing that made it sound a whole lot more interesting and made it sound like I was actually talking. I also made a lot of technical errors. For example, if you look at this piece, you can tell I had no idea how to cite where my information was coming from. My writing in the beginning of the year had no detail. Everything was very limited in explanation, and I had to go through the entire piece and add a lot more description. I can tell how much I have really improved as a writer just by looking at this simple paper.

The Piece
My Brain Explained 2.0

People learn in a lot of different ways. No one learns exactly the same, but as it turns out, this is totally okay. There are three types of learning styles, or different ways that people learn best by. These categories that we might classify our brain as are tactile, visual, and auditory. I identify as a tactile learner. There a lot of actions that have lead me to this conclusion. For example, I am a hands-on learner. Knowing this helps me figure out a lot of strategies for learning or studying. Doing anything that involves touching and moving helps me focus, like tracing letters of a new word I am learning. I rock in my chair a lot, and it actually helps me relax and focus, despite if adults around me don’t quite believe this. Things like this, chewing gum, or walking around, really help me understand and focus on what’s happening. As a tactile learner, I am a well coordinated person. This gives me an advantage in sports, as well as learning. I learn “by touching and doing,” (What’s Your Learning Style? The Results”). Everyone learns differently, but understanding what type of learning style works best for you is very important. In addition to to different learning styles, there are also different kinds of “smarts.” I am bodily/kinesthetic smart. People who are bodily/kinesthetic smart like to be active and do things by moving around. Getting to know what kind of smart you are is very helpful for many reasons. You can then find out about your strengths, and ways that you can learn better. One learning and studying strategy that works best for me is if I would like “to memorize something, write it out a number of times until I know it,” (“What Are Your Learning Strengths”). Since moving around helps me focus on what’s happening, moving props around and building models for a presentation is a good strategy for me to be successful. I learn by doing interactive things. My brain is wired in a way that works better when I’m moving and active, which is why I identify as a tactile learner and am bodily/kinesthetic smart.

About the Author

I am a seventh grade student at DeWitt Middle School.  Last year I was in sixth grade. I used to say I was a good writer, and that would be true. But just looking back at the beginning of this year’s work, I can tell that I have improved my skills a lot. Over the course of a year, my quality as a writer has gotten so much better. I am proud of how I have transformed as an English student. I can tell just how much I have improved just by looking at all the revisions I made to the piece. At the beginning of the year, I would have said what I wrote was well written, but after a full year of seventh grade English, I can see I would of been wrong! The content of my writing was very bad, and I know what was wrong with it. I have learned what those things were throughout the year, which definitely shows just how much I have grown as a writer.