Depauw Reflection

At the start of this course, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had a goal for myself to improve and learn skills that would make writing less daunting for me. I have learned so many things about my writing that I didn’t think much about before. Another goal I had was to break the cookie-cutter mold that was set upon me throughout high school. During the process of revision, I discovered many things about myself as a writer and techniques that have been effective for me in the writing process.

I was never able to step out of my comfort zone and develop different writing skills. Wanting to challenge myself and write different types of essays, I was very excited when my professor gave us our first major writing assignment of the semester. We were instructed to describe a personal experience that you have gone through and that has made a formative effect on you as an individual. At first I was nervous because the prompt was so open ended, but after digesting the guidelines of the essay, I grew excited and ambitious about tackling the task at hand. With out much thought, I knew what I was going to write, the only issue I realized was the process I was going to go through to develop the essay. No longer instructed to write a five-paragraph essay, I knew that I would have to write more elaborately and have a higher degree of complexity. Normally I would have written a paper in one or two sittings, briefly look it over for basic grammatical errors, and then turn it in hoping that I accomplished what was asked. However, our class required students to turn in one or two drafts to peer edit before the final draft was due. This was not only essential to my development as a peer reviewer but also my development as a writer. The writing process allowed me to gain helpful insight on errors that I commonly would glance

When presented with the question, “who are you as a writer?”, I was speechless at first. But after thinking about it, I realized who I am as a writer has been influenced by so many different sponsors throughout my life and there was not a short, concrete answer. Brandt mentions that “literacy is sponsored by people, institutions, and circumstances that both make it possible for a person to become literate and shape the way the person actually acquires literacy.” (Brandt 43) My attitude towards writing has been influenced by teachers, both negatively and positively, by my mother, and by academic assignments over the years. My answer to the question can only be answered by a narrative of my writing life. I have convinced myself that I am a terrible writer, and when presented with a writing assignment, I get anxious instantly. I see writing as a burden and a huge obstacle that gets placed in my life. Academic writing is not fun, but something I value due to the fact that we are a grade driven society. When writing, I write to the guidelines in order to receive points for the requested criteria. The reason being, I gave up on expressing my own ideas because I had been shut down by so many teachers throughout my education. I tried to write down what came to my mind and put my own twist on things, but that was not the “right” way to write papers. In order to make both my teachers and my grades happy, I wrote what they wanted to hear, and even then I was not to the level they

From writing thoughtful poems to research papers, I have experienced composing a diverse portfolio of literary analysis and criticisms throughout the school year. I started out the year writing minimally. By the end of the year, I noticed I was able to express my ideas and thoughts in a more clear and concise way on paper. Ultimately, each composition allowed me to widen my horizons as a writer and see how I could improve as a writer.

We all have a choice when writing to not complete the task. But is it really going to kill us? We build up this wall and have all of these excuses because we are scared of failing. I believe it’s the end of the world when I’m writing. My palms become sweaty; I look for all types of excuses to procrastinate. After reading this article, I have learned that I’m not by alone. Feeling this way is normal and I can learn to be a better writer. I will take some of Anne’s suggestions and try to quiet the voices in my head. I will begin to write down my ideas as they pop into my head because no one will see all of my rough drafts. This will allow me to take the time to review my work with a clear

When writing my papers in English I was never sure what topic, I wanted to write about. I rotated between two, one being “The Mistreatment of Animals in Zoos” and the second and my main topic being “Is College Worth the Cost.” When writing these papers, I noticed something about myself. I had grown as a writer compared to when I first walked into English 1100, I had some writing experience but not much my grammar lacked and I was the queen of sentence fragments. Throughout the semester during English 1100, my writing skills improved. From learning, how to format works cited page correctly to learning how to analyze a source. My writing improved wonders with each paper. My paper I, I struggled extremely with formatting issues and how to

By examining the ideas in the essays Freewriting by Peter Elbow and The Makers Eye: Revising your own manuscripts by Donald Murray. One can gain a better understanding of the process of turning a piece of writing from an inspiration into a craft. By examining the elements lined out in each essay can be beneficial in creating a piece of writing that is beyond a college or student level. Elbows essay lines out the importance of a strong prewriting regimen. That editing too early can ruin writing. He believes that by using the method of free writing, it can inspire ideas that may be limited when worrying about grammar. While Murray emphasizes the necessity to create many drafts to form writing into its full potential. Saying each draft is an opportunity to discover what the author has to say and they the best way to say it. By transforming writing into its maximum potential it goes from being an idea an inspiration a masterpiece.

Since I was a young child, I always had an active mind and imagination, which made me a great writer, however, a ten-year-old child has more time to write than a 16 year-old in high school would. Peer editing in class granted me the thought that I not only need to organize my time, but put in more effort into my writing. I must exercise my writing muscle

I’ve always had a love hate relationship with writing. Finishing a long paper after days of work is incredibly satisfying. This is usually true for me because I rarely write something I don’t feel good about. When I write, I labor over every sentence. I constantly modify structure for the sake of clarity. I carefully control my word choice to avoid repetition. However, this attention to detail demands a lot of my time. I’m an incredibly slow writer. I managed to prove that this term whenever we did in class writings. I struggled to get my ideas on paper in the allotted time. I always got too hung up on the mechanics. I never really wrote complete responses. My thinking suffers a similar problem. I take awhile to figure out complex ideas. So receiving a prompt, and having to respond to it in forty minutes is hard for me. When it comes to larger essay assignments, I’m much more comfortable because I have time to find and flesh out my thinking.

As a first semester student in Honors English 11 I didn’t really know what to expect going in. However, what I did know was that HE11 is a difficult class. I was a bit apprehensive at first, but once I got into to class I knew that I would be alright. The work load is large, but the work isn’t difficult. The main obstacle is time management. Luckily for me, I have really good time management skills. The writing that we did first semester is not unlike that of Honors Lit & Comp, however, this year the expectations were higher. My time commitment to writing is difficult for me quantify. However, I never felt rushed to right a paper. I used my time wisely and didn’t procrastinate. The same is true of my reading commitment. I never felt overwhelmed

Reading this now you may think “he’s going to bore me”: wrong. Having taken all my past writing into consideration, I’m going to change things up. Being a boring writer isn’t what I wanted to be, but looking back, I can see how this came about. I never used to consider English to be a strong subject, I never enjoyed reading or writing. Since I tend to wait until the last second like most other people, I rush through the assignment. Even though every teacher always explains you shouldn’t wait to cram everything in, procrastination plays a key role with most students. Now while reading this paper you may think I waited until the last second to write it, but ironically I didn’t. I attempted a new strategy in order to see if I could change the content of my writing. Depending on the reviews of others and

I completely agree Kaelen, writing is an essential part of our lives and should be taken serious. I will definitely keep that in mind to take a break between my writing process so I don’t get the case of writer’s block. Our writing process is actually very similar, for the reason that we both equally enjoy doing research to become familiar with the topic we’re writing about. If by any chance, you run low on time or want to go the extra mile and triple check your work, check out this website called Paper Rater. It’s great and usually does the trick.

English has never been my best subject, because often times in the past I would overthink even when it came to the first draft. Eventfully this would create restrictive mental chains that wouldn’t allow me to edit my draft to an extent that I thought was adequate. As result I found that I waiting a lot of time getting past my mental barriers. I had to learn the hard way that letting my ego influence my writing was not going to fly in college. Took this class once already with professor Moore and I did not respect the editing that he would do on our first draft. I began to procrastinate due to my frustration and the laid back nature of his class, which I had never experienced.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve improved at reading by spending more time on each text to be certain I have thorough understanding. I’ve learned the value of reading aloud to myself in order to know that I read every word carefully. As a writer, I’ve come to understand that putting serious effort into my work will improve the outcome. In high school, I did not acknowledge the negative effects of procrastination on my stress and anxiety levels, but during L&T I came to recognize the impact doing all my work makes on my wellbeing. Because there was little accountability during this course, I had to use self-motivation to complete my assignments

It concentrate on what will be the watchwords, how you will display the whole substance i.e. the structure of your assignment and after that extending all the data you have accumulated in a fitting and sorted out way.