Great assignment. In this photograph you have depth, you have shape, you have unbalanced composition and you have great color control. While most of the composition and artistic components are there I think you could have improved some of the technical attributes to this photograph.
For starters, the sky and part of the water is completely “burnt out”. This means that your camera had a hard time dealing with such a wide range in contrast and made the compromise (in order to keep your foreground in good exposure) to completely burn out the sky. This means you’ve lost all detail and the sky is a flat white. This is actually a technical issue with virtually all digital cameras. Digital just has a more difficult time handing contrast than film does.
That being said, it is often avoidable by choosing your framing properly and adjusting your exposure. Also darker filters help sometimes (as do polarizing filters). Sometimes a grey grad filter can come in handy because it can help darken your sky and bring it back into proper exposure while keeping your foreground at a good exposure level. I think you could have brought your exposure down 1 notch on this photograph to help darken the green leaves and pull out some of the contrast in the brush and possibly even fix some of the overexposure issue in the sky.
I hope this helps!