Engfish Reflection

Like transforming from a caterpillar to a butterfly, my writing style transformed from something mediocre to something quite exceptional. In high school, even when I took advanced placement English and Literature courses, I was never good at writing. My writing would lack structure, reasoning, syntax, and a well-defined thesis statement. My inadequate grades on writing assignments lowered my self-esteem, so I assumed I would never enjoy writing papers because I believed I could never improve. However, since attending a university my writing style has improved far beyond my expectation. My EN 101 course enhanced my understanding of the different ways I could approach my writing. Also, it enhanced my comprehension of outlines to complete assignments. Investing quality time into my writing made a substantial difference because I became a stronger writer. Through the late nights, constant revisions, and agonizing head traumas, I learned that my writing is truly spectacular whenever I incorporate well-defined thesis statements, provide sufficient supporting evidence, and maintain a clear focus in my assignments.

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.

As the semester comes to a close, it is always interesting to look back and reflect on the events and opportunities my English class has given me throughout my first semester as a whole. At the beginning of this semester it was evident that I was feeling uncomfortable due to the adjustment that I was going through as a student moving to college. It was very difficult expressing myself through my writing since I was nervous about good impressions and my good grade. While this class was one of the most difficult courses that I have taken this far, it has become quite evident to me that I have grown a substantial amount as a writer and as a person; Especially, when it came to explaining my ideas, writing academic essays, and making arguments.

English Composition I has developed my style of writing and my skills analyzing and researching topics to write a piece about a topic. Throughout the course, I got better at analyzing articles and pieces to get the meaning of the topic. With that improved skill I was more able to use the information given from the text and install it into my essays, with proper citation if needed. Before taking the English Composition course, I was not one to organize my essays in an ordeal order to clearly state the point of the work. Now with taking the course, I have learned to organize my essays, examine research for a topic, and develop an essay with proper mechanics, and revising skills. In writing my personal, review, analytical, and cultural

As a young person, I don’t really notice how quickly the world changes and advances around me, because I’m changing and growing right along with it. Lillian Boxfish, the elderly title character in the novel Lillian Boxfish Takes A Walk by Kathleen Rooney, does. Her age, a focal point in the novel, allows Lillian to view the world as she remembers it, while at times preventing her from appreciating it as it is. On New Year’s Eve in 1984, Lillian decides to ring in the new by remembering the old with a walk around her beloved New York City. As she walks, she thinks of the city as she once knew it and sees the city it has become, reliving memories both good and bad. In particular, Lillian is struck by how easily the city embraces new culture

As a new immigrant, I took the accuplacer test and went straight to 111 English level. So, English 111 course became my first college English class. It seems like a great achievement for a French speaker. Nonetheless, this performance linked to significant challenges. Even though I am a fighter and an optimist, I was frightened about my academic achievement for this semester. The problems became bigger when I took my first practice test on sentence structure (fragments and run-ons) and got a D. I was frightened and felt that I will have to drop the class. However, I decided not to give up. I started working hard and had a V+ on the next test. This positive grade energized me until now. During this semester, I have much homework and practices which allow me to identify some strengths, weaknesses, and gave me lots of skills for my English 112 class and the future.

Ballenger an accurate statement when he said that “Most of us have lurking in our past some high priest of good grammar whose angry scribbling occupied the margins of our paper.” Most teachers overlooked what we had written and just looked for grammatical errors. This always made me feel like my writing was never good enough. This discouraged when it came to writing papers because I always felt like I was just writing to have my essay covered in errors that I needed to fix. After getting so many red markings on my essays I always questioned my writing. In my head I could not figure out what I was doing wrong and I did not know how to fix my writing. It became really stressful to write essays and I always dreaded when

In English 111 I have struggled with many assignments over the course of the semester, picking myself up over time from countless mistakes on papers, to procrastinating on basic class work assignments. Before Fall semester, I had no idea what college would be like, or how hard it could be. Things were not the same as high school; it was different to a point where college seemed a lot harder than it was supposed to be. In English 111, I got the chance to meet new students and different professors that have helped guide me to success throughout the semester.

Despite my dislike for most academic writing, the importance of how it is structured and presented is not lost on me. Finding a good way to follow the conventions taught while trudging away on a project has helped me in many ways. Making sure that I will follow and grow as well has been a huge help. Growth as a writer as pointed out by Kevin Davis

Before this English course, I would not feel compelled to incorporate transitions into my essays. Sentence transitions connect paragraphs and new ideas; it creates a better flow of the sentences. I now value the importance of formality in academic essays. I learned to avoid ending sentences with prepositions because it would not sound proper, to choose the right diction for clear understanding to readers, and to eliminate wordy expressions and needless words because being concise is key. Using active voice is strong and clear in academic essays because passive voice does not focus and emphasize on the subject but in the sentence object. During English 1101, I noticed the use of verb tenses from the rhetorical reading responses and the narrative essay; it is crucial to have the appropriate verb tense for a clear essay. In addition, finding different sources for research papers, such as the concept paper done this course, is pivotal for readers to consider the author credible. Beginning a sentence with a compelling subject will most likely evoke readers’ interests rather than just “there” or “it”. In all these years of sitting in an English class, I finally know why not to use second person: “You” does not apply to everyone when the author is talking about a narrowed topic. Lastly, the one aspect of writing that stuck with me the most was to make any work original and

Over the course of this quarter, I have written several projects that were like nothing I had ever written before. These foreign styles were a challenge for me. For a long time, I was used to writing only academic essays because that was all I was required to write in high school. I now see that there are many other styles that can deliver that same ideas as an essay if they are written with a clear purpose. Looking back on the course and on my projects I can see that the main issue with my writing was that I focused too much on the style of the projects. I was more concerned with how the projects were written not what was actually being written, because of that the arguments and ideas that I tried to convey lost their impact.

At 11:15 on Monday, August 17, 2015, my first official college class, English 1101, began. In general, I had no idea what college classes would be like let alone how college English would be. Even though this class taught me a great deal in one semester, it took a large amount of time and effort to make the adjustment from high school. The simplistic writing style of high school was put to rest the moment the first college English class began. As a result, I learned quickly that college writing is complex and less systematic than high school writing. Five paragraph essays with three strict body paragraphs were no longer the norm for writing. Even though my professor helped guide my writing, I was no longer coddled through the whole writing

I’ve learned a lot of useful tips from this semester in ENG 201. English has never been my strong suit nor has it been my favorite class. However this college course has changed my point of view of the subject. Prior coming into college I viewed English as a useless class because I’ve already knew the basics: how to talk, read and write essays. Today I view English as an important class. It helped me in other courses that involved writing, such as World Civilization and Communications, because it allowed me to practice my skills. In my world civilization exams I had to write essays. This course helped me write an impactful essay. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that almost all of my exam scores were in the 90s, usually I do poorly in the

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

At the beginning of this class I was nervous on how this semester will go and whether or not I will succeed to my fullest potential in English. With that in my mind I still was trying my best to work at getting better, despite how much it made me cringe at the thought of it. My perspective of writing began to change as time went on, the assignments were based on interesting topics which made it a bit bearable for me. I’ve learned that you have to make the steps to get to the perfect paper. A paper requires you to brainstorm, make an outline, and writing your rough draft to get that feedback you need before finishing up that final draft. During this class I have also learned where to put my thesis and that I don’t need to have that three point subtopics of what you should talk about. The writing length started getting longer and I was a bit skeptical on how I can get to the word count or what will I talk about within my papers, but I have