Reflective Statement

I think the trap that I fell into was treating this opinion editorial like a personal statement. Instead

of making a strong argument for something, I really just wanted to write a bunch of creative,

quotable sentences that left a punch. I was more interested in being catchy than the actual

substance, when it really should have been the other way around. However, spending time on

writing sentences I enjoyed did make the writing process more interesting.

The hardest part of writing this paper was making my ideas flow nicely together. I ended

up with about five catchy and wonderful introductions, then a few short paragraphs of

substance. The difficult part was reversing that order—getting one wonderful introduction and a

myriad of meaty points to back my claim up.

 The other part of this assignment that was difficult was that my personal opinion

switched halfway through writing this paper. I read a book by Elder Bednar, “Act In Doctrine”,

which articulated quite a few amazing ways to teach that essentially persuaded me that

teaching the doctrines instead of discussing the questions was a more important topic to

discuss. If we taught, and were taught pure doctrines and principles, there would be no need for

my essay. If I was to redo my opinion editorial, I would discuss how our classrooms need to

focus more on teaching pure Gospel Principles and Doctrines and less on applications of

Principles and Doctrines. This is essentially the entire converse of my argument but essentially

gets down to the core of the issue.

 All things considered though, I think the most useful thing that I did in preparation for this

assignment was rereading my favorite opinion articles collected over time in order to see how

different authors effectively utilized their own styles.