College English Changes People

Upon entering Columbia College, writing was one of my weaker areas. It was very important that I gained the necessary knowledge and confidence to become a better writer. I didn’t know how to express myself and felt as though my writing was not my interest. As a result of taking English 101, I have gained a better understanding on how to properly research and build a satisfactory paper. Every paper that was assigned seemed like a struggle to complete. Before entering this class, I did not know the meaning of a thesis or why it was important, however, I obtained this skill quickly. I noticed that every paper has an argument and the thesis helps clarify the rebuttal. Now, I have a new outlook on writing. It’s a way to express my thoughts and allow others to see things through my eyes. There is no doubt that I still have a long way to go, but I know if I continue to write, I will get better. Just as I developed more skills in class, the various papers assigned helped to better structure the writer in me. In addition, the subject areas were not only interesting, but very informative and made it much easier to write about my experiences.

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

A semester has passed since I started college and my journey of becoming a better writer. It has been a very important semester for my future college career, and I would not be here without the things I have accomplished. The composition program has really helped me to prepare for what college writing is all about. Now standing here and looking back I could not imagine how it would be without that class. I believe my English, and my writing is better than it has ever been, and all thanks to the composition program.

Cynthia Haven is the writer of an article called “The New Literacy: Stanford study finds richness and complexity in students' writing” that is a study based on the amount of writing college students do. She followed students at Stanford during their undergraduate years and the first year after that. She discovered that today’s students are writing more than any generation before it. Cynthia had the students she was studying submit all of the writing they did, academic or personal. She found that only 62 percent of the work submitted to her was for classes; the rest of the material was “Life writing”.

When I started the English Composition course I expected an entirely different type of writing. I expected more of a story telling writing, novelist, story and screenplay writing. To my surprise, it was a different world of grammar, style, voice, sentence mechanics and structure guidelines. I was afraid of something new and challenging. I expected more of a three act structure to write a novel or a short story but the course was different. Different in a helpful way that it opened my eyes to how the overall writing process works.

I entered my first-year college composition course believing I was equipped with the knowledge, skill, and ability to write an efficiently researched and well-organized essay. In high school, I learned how to create the traditional five-paragraph paper with its introduction of a thesis, explanation of that claim through three sections riddled with supporting quotes, and conclusion that restated the author’s substantiated statement. This was the prescribed formula I had learned and grown accustomed to using for book reports, compare-and-contrast papers, and research essays and, from my bestowment of high grades and praise, I’d never thought to question or deviate from its pattern. When I attended my first college writing class, I thought

Writing a college-level essay can be tricky, especially if there is lack of inspiration or the ideas aren’t organized well enough to articulate into a draft. However, in the case of higher-level education; students are encouraged to stimulate their learning through writing, in order to acquire an analytical and understanding capacity to be successful in college. Coupled with planning, research, and hard work; writing essays for college becomes an easier task in a short time, resulting in the improvement of critical thoughts. In the article, Using Writing to Promote Reading to Learn in College, Hayes Christopher G, states that, “the written text allows both reader and writer to examine thoughts captured in time and recorded in words, thereby encouraging more complex thinking because constraints imposed by memory have been abolished by the written record” (Hayes 4). After all, more than any other invention, writing has transformed the human consciousness. This mastery gives society the ability to improve every day, by enhancing their personalities, considering that having a good use of language and information, will result in achieving great success. In the article: Reconsidering English Teaching for Improving Non-English Majors’ English writing Ability, Yuru Shen declares how, “it is self-evident that grammar plays a very important role in language learning, including English learning” (Shen 74).With this in mind, understanding that college level composition is important will

As a high school student taking on a college course, I acknowledged and accepted the challenge that lay ahead of me. The main reason I selected Composition I and II was that it allowed me to vastly improve my overall writing skills. Developing my techniques will benefit me when I am required to compose any writing assignments for my future college classes. Therefore, with that goal in mind, I chose to take this class while still attending high school. I began this class as an average writer; additionally, I did not know the majority of the writing rules or how to make an essay meet its potential. Over the course of these two classes, I believe that I have proven my writing to be more seamless and interesting to read.

One thing that i definitely didn’t like was my imagery. I never really described the setting that I wanted to get across. Looking back on this essay, I really should have set the scene of becoming a middle schooler and being the underdog in almost every subject. I wish I would have used more sensory details. For example, when describing how troubling soccer was for me I should have captured a snapshot moment of me getting beat all the time or getting picked last for a scrimmage. Something along the lines of, “It was the fateful moment of when the two chosen 8th graders would pick their team for the 15-minute scrimmage. I waited anxiously for my name to be called, my feet were constantly moving in place in the squishy mud. “Mo, Kate, Ash”. One after another the names kept coming until there were about three girls left. The three girls no one wanted; Including me. My palms were sweaty. In my head was a constant chant of please, please, please but it was to no avail. I was still last”.

The purpose was more of that it is okay to take risks and be courageous when it comes to a problem and don’t be afraid to do something, take a leap of faith and do what you have to in order to get by. For my story the audience was more directed towards adults, more specifically drug addicts and young adults who are curious about trying new drugs. The purpose was simple I thought, that was to first not take drugs, and lastly don’t trust people who you do not know for there are bad people out there who seem good, like the doctor. One change I made in the story included changing the setting so it was in a big city and not on a farm. I thought the big city was more of a place where you would find helpless/homeless people and drugs. Another big change I made was to have Jack and his mother not have a happy ending like the original and have them learn the lesson the hard way. This represented how drugs can make someone learn the hard way of what is right and wrong. Also, another change was the giant was more friendly in my story as he was supposed to represent God. I wanted to keep Jack’s personality of being adventurous and curious because I thought it represented young adults being curious like how Jack was in the original. I wanted to keep the mother quite like the original because I thought it shows more of the side where she was sick and helpless. Overall, I thought that the changes were more fitting to the story and the lesson that was to be learned of not trusting people, even when one is the most

“…As for all the seniors, I want you to challenge yourselves this year and don’t think you’re going to cruise through to graduation.”-Mrs. Smith, County High School. Although some seniors in high school refuse to take a hard schedule, I decided to take a challenging composition course my last year of high school and learned more than ever before from it. My teacher, Mr. Bacz, focused mostly on vocabulary, grammar, and how to right an essay. Each one of these subjects combined to give me a year of hard work, which eventually paid off.

My experience with English has changed drastically from middle school to college. Being in middle school I have really had to do much of a big paper, but as I progressed through college I’ve realized there much more that has to be added. I had always wondered why middle school was so easy but as years went on, I realized that advancing to college there’s a lot more requirements and importance to writing. In middle school, I was young and just starting to really realize what an essay was and after high school I really understood what an essay consists of. No matter how

In Senior year my only goal consisted of finding platforms that would provide optimal opportunities to convince colleges they need me at their schools. To reach my goal I took the ACT fives times, constantly checked my GPA average, and volunteered frequently. None of this however, compares to the biggest step I accomplished while working towards my goal: Completing Composition I. When I signed up for my first college class I imagined a scene similar to that of a movie’s with a huge room containing over one hundred college students brainlessly jotting down notes from a professor's powerpoint. I did not expect the class to look similar to an average high school classroom. However looks can be deceiving, and upon my journey into a transition between a high school experience to a college one, I found the level of difficulty to increase tenfold. Everything needed more effort, more time, and more evaluation. What I thought I knew about writing was flipped upside down and rearranged. Composition I taught me more than I thought I would learn in the class. The course taught me how to use the writing process to improve my writing and utilize various grammatical sentence structures, as well as produce impressive summaries over any college reading thrown my way.

The first aspect of my essay what you noted was lacking was found in the introductory paragraph. After reading over it I understand why, the question seems to blend in too much which in actuality it should not. The question should protrude to the audience, resulting in my

When I first started college I did not know what to expect with an English class. I liked writing about topics that interested me, but high school did not allow me to do that. I took American History and we would have to write