My narrative certainly still has a long way to go in order for me to feel entirely proud of the work that I produced. Firstly, I felt that my tone tended to fluctuate at times from story-like to fast past and abrupt more towards the end. Done properly, a shift in tone can contribute to the feeling that the narrator is attempting to provoke in the reader. I feel as if I attempted to do this, but in the end I fell short and the last paragraph was rushed and contrasted dynamically to that of the beginning. Ultimately, I felt that there was a lack in my ability to bridge the story telling part to the “conclusive-like” end statements. There was an abrupt and short transition in tone that I feel took the reader out of my essay. I would go back and edit my transition, not only in tone but just in general to make the work flow better as a whole. Additionally, I felt that my introduction dragged and may have been a bit unnecessary. The “Over time, it just starts to seem like a bad dream” part was unnecessary. The point of a hook is to be quick and grab the reader’s attention. I developed a hook that lasted for around 4 sentences, looking back it seems a tad long which could result in losing the reader’s attention and shifting focus away from the point I was trying to make. I like that I added a hook, I just wish that I would have gotten to the point sooner.

Initially going into this piece, I felt that it was going to be a fairly easy assignment. I’m not a huge fan of critical analysis essays and writing about literary devices, so I was excited to be able to just write a story; one of which I was able to write in the same way that I speak instead of being overly formal. Because of this, I greatly underestimated this assignment. In telling a story there must be a balance between retelling accounts, keeping the reader interested, and keeping the main focus on a singular event as to not stray from the objective. I love to talk, so I found myself struggling to pick a singular story and not include unnecessary details that would just take away from the point I was trying to make. In my first draft I talked about changing my outfits and hair to match that of the other girls. This was a fine topic, if done properly. Initially, I focused too much attention on my hair. As I read over my own narrative after Tyler’s peer review, I completely understood what he meant when he said that he felt confused about why I had thrown the story of my hair in there when I was talking about changing my outfits in the beginning of the essay. It shifted focus and by the end of reading the essay, you completely forgot that I changed my outfits as well because my hair became the main focus towards the end. People oftentimes forget the beginning of essays because of all of the information that they read up until the very end. That is why conclusions are important; to address and summarize all of the key points made throughout the entire essay. The so called “conclusion” that I attempted to write at the end of my first draft completely fell short because I hardly even mentioned changing my outfits and didn’t refer back to my desire of wanting to fit in, my hair and the repercussions for straightening it became the main focus. This left the reader confused as to what point exactly I was trying to make. In my revision, I chose to focus only on my hair in an attempt to make the narrative more concise. I do believe this was a good decision because there is now only a singular plot line.

However as mentioned before, I felt that I could have concluded the narrative differently. The ending felt rushed and underdeveloped. For example at the part when I said, “Truth is, I’m 18 years old and even now I still care about other people’s perspectives” I could have went into further detail about why I still care about other people’s perspectives and how that has influenced the way in which I go about my daily life. I feel that I left the audience with something more to be desired, and not in a good way. One thing that I do like that I did was, emphasize that not every story has a happy ending. Realistically, life is rough and things don’t always go the way you intend them to. I still haven’t fully gotten over what I did to my hair, lord knows that my hair is still recovering to this day, but the fact that I still struggle with this insecurity develops a personal and vulnerable relationship with the reader, one that they can relate to.

Lastly, I felt that my peer review was completely below standard and I honestly feel bad for bad Tyler having to be my partner. His review of my narrative was extremely helpful and insightful. He gave genuine feedback with numerous examples and I did my best to attempt to manifest his recommendations. On the other hand, I gave him a broad and general review that probably could have applied to anyone had his name been omitted. In high school my teachers only taught us how to do quick and easy peer reviews. These weren’t really peer reviews, they were basically just paperwork that kept us busy until the bell rang. The teachers only checked the peer reviews for completion and didn’t hand them back to us so that we could make revisions based on them. However, I’m in college now and should have completed the peer review on a college level and I accept full responsibility for my sub par review. Next time I will use direct examples from my peer’s essay, provide a higher level of analysis, and give actually helpful advice on what they can do to improve their essay.