Taking a collage level English class at 40 is an intimidating task, no matter who you are. I have always had a pretty healthy grasp of writing, and have done it for fun most of my life. I loved to read in elementary school and found a new affection for writing in middle school when I was part of the UIL ready writing team for the seventh grade. Coming in to the collage level class was still a daunting undertaking simply because it has been so long since I had been graded on my work! Writing to someone else's standard is intimidating after 27 years of only writing for my own entertainment. I was unsure what to expect in this class because I have never taken an English comp course and I only finished the 8th grade, so I have no high school experience to draw from. Through the weeks of this course I have learned new processes for research, topic selection, and essay structure, as well as other useful skills like building a website and giving an oral video report. I have grown as a writer over the course of this class in many ways, from my organization skills to the proofreading process. The structure of this class was very interesting for me to learn a new way to think about writing. I had never written a paper in segments, but after the first assignment I could see the benefit of focusing on one section at a time instead of diving in and getting lost in the totality of the work. Allowing the focus on one section at a time prevents a writer from becoming overwhelmed and
Before I enrolled in English 101 my ability to write specific types of papers (argumentative, rhetoric, narrative, etc) were mediocre at best. However, from reading The Norton Field Guide to Writing and They Say, I Say I gained a deeper understanding on how to better argue a point or write a narrative with a clear theme. Moreover, from my time of being in English 101 I have improved tremendously in the given areas: Rhetoric, Technology, Research, and Collaboration.
Coming into this University, I knew that my writing skills were not poor, however I needed more guidance on how to be a more successful writer. My last english class in high school was advanced writing class, so I thought that my skills acquired through that class would help me a lot through this class. I will say I credit my background knowledge for some of my success on my papers, but the English 101 course itself has helped me strengthen my skills. I picked the specific papers in my portfolio because they represent my writing style. I always wrote by what the book said, like a machine. My english teacher this year told me I needed to work on being comfortable with not always following the book. After I learned to do that, I had some trouble
Engineers define a successful task by measure the efficiency of the final product when the process is done. The same theory apply to me when I step into English 150 class for Fall semester, 2014. Coming from Mechanical Engineering background, I tend to think like an engineering because this is what I need to prepare for my future job. I like to measure the efficiency of learning English by look at the effort that I put on this subject and make it worth measure what I have improve for this semester. There are several important improvement that I can made through semester which are benefiting skills as a student, spotting my weakness, and finding way decrease my weakness.
Throughout the English 111 class, my writing ability has grown to meet all of the course outcomes. In this class I was required to analyze fictional texts and make complex claims that matter in an academic contexts and revise them in order to make grammatical sense. For the 1.0 sequence I focused on Night, by Elie Wiesel and Sarah’s Key, written by Tatiana de Rosnay. Short papers 1.1 and 1.2, focused on each book respectively while major paper 1.3 allowed me to back my claim with both of the texts allowing for a larger exchange of ideas. Within the 2.0 sequence I focused mainly on the Poisonwood Bible, penned by Barbra Kingsolver. The short paper I have chosen to focus on for this sequence was 2.2; in which I had to write a letter to a character
When I was a young student, my first English professor taught me the alphabet. After one year, he taught me to put those letters together to make words, sentences, and finally paragraphs in essays. During the high school I learn to write short paragraphs, with ought putting in the correct structure .When I moved in America I stared the course of English as a Second Language and I finished with success last year. My professor advise me that when I starts the English 101 my writing it will be more fulfil and more structural. He has right as when I arrived in English 101, I realized there was more to do not just writing words on paper.
The beginning of my junior year seems like it was such a long time ago. This may be because of how much I have grown since the start of the year. When I began AP English, my writing skills needed improvement. For instance, I often used incorrect grammar and struggled with staying on topic. In just one semester, my writing has improved immensely. The more than I write, the more I learn about how to craft a good paper. I have worked on improving my grammar, using rhetoric, addressing my subject, and many more elements of writing. In addition to improving my writing, I have gained many skills to become a better student. I have learned about effective study techniques and time-management skills that allow me to be the most successful. Since I always try my best, I know that over time I will continue to grow in my studies. This year I have gained countless skills that will help me succeed in English in the future.
First off, I want to thank you for making this year and my first honors English experience fun for me! Though this year was challenging for me, it has also been extremely knowledgeable. From my freshman year to sophomore year, I can definitely notice the difference in my writing and reading. I can definitely see how much I have grown, and I am sure you could see these improvements too. Last year, I was in regular English and jumping from regular to honors was a huge step for me, which at first, I was not fully comfortable with. But as I got to know this year’s class and of course you, Mrs. Walker, I felt like I belonged here, in an honors English class. Throughout this year, I have learnt and improved at my skills of properly annotating texts, writing a proper claim, analyzing author’s style, and also analyzing rhetorical situations.
As the semester was coming to a beginning I honestly thought I was ready for this course. I say this because senior year high school I took an advanced placement English class. I also, say I was ready to start this course because I have had practice with English and writing essays during my summer before beginning Fall year. I would get good grades on my essays both my AP English class and my Summer English class. So with that being said I thought I was going to do good in this course. As I began this course and saw that we were only going to be doing three essays and a portfolio for the whole year, I thought I was so ready for the semester. I thought this class was going to be one of my easiest class. As assignments were coming up I thought
When I began working in this class I was fearful that it would be a waste of my time. In high school, I took two AP English classes: administration at my school cancelled the first one in the middle of the year and I did not excell in the second. However, because of my educational background I am used to being challeneged and I did not see this course doing that for me. I never characterized myself as a great writer but I was already very familiar with the skills being reviewed so I did not believe that this course would add much value to my writing skills.
As a writer, I am quite sure of myself. I feel that English 101 was a large step in improving and building my skills. Writing is a particular strength of mine, although I struggle when it comes to open-ended prompts. While I can effectively construct an argument, I would consider myself still inexperienced with the writing process. Throughout high school, there were few writing assignments and what I did write was formulaic and lacking substance; giving original ideas or organizing beyond the five paragraph essay is still fresh to me. My teachers would tell us students what to write during a “class discussion” of the literature and afterwards send us to work. Writing outside the basic five-paragraph essay was taboo; each attempt had been met
Throughout my academic carrer, I have had a history of struggling with English classes. I was excited to take English 101 because I believed it would most effectively teach me the basics of successful writing and communication. In high school, I developed mediocre writing skills and struggled with reading comprehension so I knew these topics would pose a problem in any English class I take. Despite the fact that I was in AP Language in high school, I learned very little and did not improve my writing and communication skills as much as I would have liked. In English 101 , I would like to change that and enhance my time management skills, grammar skills, and overall writing ability.
Ever since I was a child, I never really enjoyed the subject of English. Aside from me considering the subject to be boring my vocabulary always seemed to be lacking compared to my peers, and the time I spent on reading passages and answering questions about those passages was much longer than my classmates’. However, my literacy skills started to slowly develop, and I ended up appreciating English in my junior and senior years of high school.
I have several expectations for success in English 101, from my teacher, from my classmates, and from myself. In this course I expect my teacher, Mrs. Carroll, to demonstrate how to properly compose interviews, essays, and research papers. I also hope to learn how to write the papers in the correct formats. Additionally, I expect my classmates to be courteous, to avoid being disruptive, and to be respectful. Furthermore, I expect myself to strive for greatness, to never give up, and to improve daily. I expect many different things from many individuals, but I realize that is the only way to be successful in life and in English 101.
Throughout this semester in English 101, I have made a significant improvement on multiple things, including how to be an exceptional writer and thinker. English has always been one of my most favored subjects to study because to me it instructs students how to be intelligent, how to become a more creative and critical thinker, and be able to develop ethical values and imagination. You can express yourself more efficiently in English than you can in any other subject. This class has truly made me a more confident writer and helped me express myself in different ways through the different types of papers I wrote. By writing different types of papers I have improved multiple areas of my writing. I have grown as a student in diverse areas such
This first semester at the University of Akron has flown by. I learned many new writing concepts that helped me become a better writer. English composition was a required class that I had to take in order to get my degree. Although this class was required I still wanted to take this class to become more knowledgeable about writing. Coming into English Composition I was worried about all of the papers and the workload that I would have to complete. I knew that I was going to have to write a lot more than I previously had in highschool, but I was unsure of just how much. The works that I decided to include in my portfolio comprise of my Literacy Narrative, Image Analysis Paper, and essay titled Mayas Hardships based on Maya’s experiences in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I selected these works because I felt that they are the ones that require the most improvement to them. The papers i've chosen show how far I’ve came In English Composition.