Argumentative Essay On How My Identity Has Grown

I haven’t grown. Literally, my height is the same as it was on September 1st. However, my perception and identity has grown. I have grown as a writer and as a person. My life has changed because of the people around me, such as my peers, my family, and my teachers. Without these people in my life I wouldn’t have evolved during these past few months, I would have stayed the same. I think that in order for a person to grow there needs to be different opinions and different perceptions around you. In order for you to change you need to develop empathy for others. At the beginning of the school year I was naive, old 7th grader, but as time passed I’ve grown and changed. When I walked in through the door of Ogden International School of Chicago my “status” changed. I’ve become an 8th grader, young as a newborn 8th

grader. Right at that moment my role in the school changed, which changed my effect on others.
After few weeks of school we are asked in ELA classes to focus on this unit questions “How does my identity affect my perception?” At the beginning of the school year I did not even know that identity could possibly affect our perception. Perception was just an unknown noun, but after understanding the context of it, it transformed me. Questions such as this allow me to understand myself and others better. Unit questions help me work on answering questions for a long time and at the end come up with logical and successfully developed answer. For example at the beginning of the school year my answer to this question was that each of us have different perceptions and perception as well as identity could be shaped by the way you are raised. On November 22nd we had a free write about our unit question and my opinion did not change it was frozen in time.
After few days Mr. Wagner informed us that we are going to write a narrative on our changing answers to the unit question. I was terrified. How am I supposed to write a changing answer to the question if my answer hasn’t really changed, OOPS? I knew that I had to start thinking about the unit question more frequently, so I did.
Time passed like a fly. It was time for our last discussion on this unit question. On November 26th we had our last discussion.
“Things that affect how we see the world include race, gender, sexual orientation, social class, religion, age…” said Alexis
“I agree with Alexis and I want to add that the things you like and the way you were raised affect your perception as well.” stated Tamia.
These classmates helped me shape my opinion in more complex way. When you think about unit question you don’t think about simple and complex answers at the same time. Answering unit questions helps us develop an answer that consists of different point of views but makes one strong answer.
I have also changed as a writer throughout the school year.

My autobiographical narrative was terrible. If someone would invent a time machine… can I borrow it? I was never a strong writer, especially I suck at narratives. No I am sorry to inform you that I do not think that my narrative writing improved significantly. It improved but not a lot. However one thing that has improved is my argumentative essay writing. When we first started writing these essays on the beginning of January I used words such as firstly and secondly. Now I know that this is so 6th grade. I learned to write goo topic sentences, write good connecting sentences as well as transitional ones. So you can claim that I basically learned everything about narratives this year, which indicates that I have evolved as a writer. Argumentative essays became my favorite assignments. I love to argue. Proving people wrong is satisfactory. Many things that I have learned this year changed me as a writer, which I think is the best reward.

Becoming a “modified” person could be both a good and a bad thing. In my case I changed for the better. I changed and now I understand myself and other

better.