I suggested a coarser paper because it's easier to lay graphite on the surface, which (as little is deep in the tooth) is then easier to blend. Your paper appears to be quite rough, and your result is excellent! Try it on a smooth paper if you have time and you should be able to repeat this quality but without the paper's texture imposing itself on the result.

You've produced a good strong dark, and the layers smoothly blend into each other - no obvious edges or blunt-ended lines. Incidentally, slightly altering the length of each line of shading can help too, so the eye doesn't have an obvious edge to detect.

All your lines clearly had a taper at one end. When you have time, try drawing a series of lines that have tapers on both ends. Imagine drawing a flattened arc - gently drop your pencil down on to your paper as you draw to create the start taper, then draw your line, and finally gently decrease the pressure and lift your pencil clear of the paper to create the end taper. This is something we'll be returning too soon, so practice now will make that week much easier.

These videos should help - especially the Tapered Lines one:
FIRST STEPS
TAPERED LINES

An excellent attempt - smooth, and devoid of gaps. This appears to be unblended so I'll assume that's the case. Sometimes leaving a comment with your posts would help me.

Your black is strong and dense and you've achieved a smooth transition through the tones. Hopefully, you were aware of your black increasing in solidity and intensity as you shaded over it. You can use this layering technique whenever you want to darken a black or smooth a midtone - just layer with a harder grade, which will remove any white content and, in the case of the blacks, break up the large graphite grains, spread them more evenly, and push them deeper into your paper.

When someone looks at your drawing their brain will register the darkest value, however small, and then read the white of your paper as being pure white. From those check points it will compare the two extremes and understand all the mid values. The wider the overall tonal range the more three-dimensional information you can impart.

Incidentally, never be afraid of using strong blacks - I'll show you how you can reverse it soon.

In my opinion, layering produces a similar effect to blending but the result is sharper and more lively, and it doesn't lighten the darks. Blending, which I don't often use, certainly has its uses and works well if you shade a degree darker than you want the result to be, because blending will always lighten dark values.

Use blending with caution. Always ask yourself if it's really needed before you pick up your blender. Where line has to be completely banished - smooth skin, skies, etc - then blending is definitely required. Just be aware that it will lighten the values and soften hard edges.

First, two videos for you: LAYER and BURNISH and SHADE A LOVELY LILY

Your time was well-spent! This is beautifully crafted and near-perfect.

I feel you had a very good mental picture of the three-dimensional shapes as you shaded this, which means it was living in your mind as a real Lily. That's ideal and leads to drawing with understanding instead of copying.

I'm very pleased to see that you managed to remove any need to use outline. Line is a purely man-made device and completely unnatural, so always look for ways that cast shadows or reflected light can help you to display edges and junctions between two parts. You can use reflected light almost anywhere you need it - the viewer's brain just assumes there's a reflective surface outside of the picture that is bouncing light back in. It really is the artist's best friend.

Your shading of the petals, with their subtle highlights, describes their form very well indeed. And I like the dark tones inside the flower - they give a very good sense of depth. The stamens stand away from the petal behind them, and that's a difficult thing to achieve.

My only reservation is that the anthers (the lumps on top of the stamens) could have been better. If you had found ways to work in some really dark values with very sharp edges, they would have sprung forward from the softer petal behind them. Contrasting sharp against soft often works in this situation - probably because we're conditioned to understanding sharpness to be in the foreground and soft edges belonging to the midground or background.

Your shading is flawless and slides smoothly into and out of every highlight. The more I look at this, the more I find to admire, and everything is immediately understandable in a three-dimensional way.