Facing Your Writting Problems

“Wake up,” that’s what I heard after passing out from all the blows to the face. My vision is blurred I’m trying to stay awake but I lost consciousness; all of a sudden I felt a splash of coldness on my face, and I woke up gasping for air. The man with the deep ominous voice said, “Wakey wakey little man” I replied, “where the h*ll is Mako!” when I was fully aware of where I was, that’s when I started to panic.

“Some people say I was lucky to survive, other will say I deserved it for the choice I made. I’m here to say I was lucky, it’s never ok to say your life isn’t worth living even at your worst you can always look forward tomorrow will come and if you put your mind to it you’ll see that anything is possible.” – Stephen McGregor Professional Paralympian

In the essay Our Time by John Edgar Wideman, Wideman is speaking on how he and his brother’s life differ even though they grew up together. The author utilizes many distinctive literary techniques such as personification, breaking the narrative, point of view, and a couple examples of diction.

Throughout the course of this semester in AP Lang, my eyes have been opened to many of the weaknesses I never knew I had in writing. Coming into this semester, I had heard about the difficulty of this class, but was not unduly worried about not receiving an A; I have always considered myself as a competent if not strong writer. However, after failing to attain desired grades on several important essays, I was devastated, and realized that although I had mastered the basics of grammar and writing, there was still much for me to work on. Also, I did not understand that much of my grade in AP Lang would be determined by speaking in front of others, which is not my strong suit. What I have come to find is that writing essays containing all of the new information we have learned throughout the semester, such as requirements for different types of essays and good writing strategies, takes a lot of work, time, and thinking. Unfortunately, my procrastination caused me to only get done what had to be done instead of putting in the extra work and truly understanding everything.

As they continue talking, John is somewhat shocked as to what Robby is saying. He explains how as a kid he escaped the stereotypes and the temptation of the gangs and the violence that surrounded him as he grew up. He thought that because Robby was hanging around the wrong crew that his personality was tainted in a way by thinking that he was a “cool cat” that didn’t follow the rules and sold drugs. But if you go back and read the opening of the passage john shows the audience that his brother deep down inside is a good person. Now that being said the story john gave us in the beginning of his draft was not Robby’s true words which shows the reader his first problem. Wideman states “the hardest habit to break, since it was the habit of a lifetime, would be listening to myself listen to him. That habit would destroy any chance of seeing my brother on his terms; and seeing him in his terms, learning his terms, seemed the whole point of his story.”(672). after reading the beginning again, I then realized that the way the story of Garths death was described couldn’t have been the voice of Robby. There is no exact explanation as to why Wideman interrupts the narrative to talk about his writing problems. Or why he started it with Garths death. I think he includes this to catch the reader’s attention rather than writing a traditional beginning, middle, and end. Writing the narrative with no specific beginning and stating the problems he has writing it makes

In “Our Time” by John Wildeman, he describes the story of his brother with him struggling with society, family, and to find who he is. Throughout the many nonfiction accounts, the audience sees the world of Robby though a interview between Robby and John. Most of these accounts focus primarily on the dark upbring of Robby and his views of society. The predominate categories that were focus in this selection were the passing of his friend of Garth, changing of home scenery and environment (peer pressure, societal norms, and prison), and his birthday which falls in with others noteworthy events to a point where Robby feels left out. In “Our Time” shows the troubling background and dichotomies within Robby’s viewpoint compared to John’s, where he loses a sense of reality and is

Wideman Argumentative Essay Not all families are lucky enough to have a healthy structure. Having a strong sense of stability and belonging in a family, is major to growing up mentally healthy along with a sense of purpose in life. Throughout the story ‘Our Time’ by author John Edgar Wideman, one is able to recognize the importance of family and how it was definitely different from what one considers a traditional family unit.

Author and professor of writing, Amy Joy stated “Anyone who says writing is easy isn 't doing it right” Learning what I have about the writing process over this past semester, I can now confidently say that Amy Joy is absolutely correct! Writing has never been my strong point but taking on the challenge to turn that around has been extremely rewarding. My lack of confidence in my writing skills would always come across in my assignments. It was clear that I needed guidance with grammar, sentence structure, and expanding my vocabulary. Fortunately, the coursework in English 101 along with the help and support of my professor, I have gained a much greater confidence in my ability to write quality college level papers. My writing has greatly improved taking the Introduction to College Writing course. I have learned how to integrate the words and ideas of others by quoting and paraphrasing, about expository writing, and most importantly, critical thinking.

As I finished my first semester of college, I was super excited and thrilled when I realized not once did I have to write a paper for any of my classes. There were some paragraphs and summaries here and there but they were pretty standard. When I realized that I was going to have to take Rhetoric 105, a writing course, I freaked out not because there would be a lot of readings but because of the writing expectations. Obviously, I am a decent writer if I was able to get accepted to multiple universities and get good grades throughout my writing career. Yet there is still this nervousness whenever I realize I have to write a paper. I have multiple struggles and strengths when it comes to writing. One of the struggles I face every time it comes to writing a paper is actually getting

The two errors that present the biggest challenge to me in writing are comma splice and unnecessary commas. All throughout high school and into college these two errors have been my biggest downfall. In Fall 2014 semester, I took English 111 and my teacher had written on every paper that I wrote that I have to be careful of both comma splice and unnecessary commas. I can use this class as an opportunity to correct these errors by referring back to this book. In my other class, we didn’t use a book so I never had something to help me understand what exactly I was doing wrong. I hope that with help from my classmates and my teacher I can overcome this obstacle I face in my writing. In addition, I plan to use the book to help me when I am uncertain

Robby had gone to jail for killng a man and his life was at its lowest point. Wideman is talking to his brother just trying to understand his mental and intellectual process and his feelings but, to no avail. When you look back at the beginning of the story, it all started with Garths death. After Robby explained his feelings and life, wideman starts to comprehend what his brother has gone through and the road he went down. He had to look deeper than what the end result from his brother was. Wideman had to look at the facts and the tribulations his brother had to endure. Mentally when his brother was younger he just didn’t know how to deal with the pain he was going through so he lashed out. Wideman had to look deeper than what he saw from his

As a writer, I feel that my weakness is struggling with time management and trying to get my best draft as my first draft. I have always struggled with trying to put forth the best draft on the first one and just making little adjustments and then turning the paper in. Another weakness I have is to over complicate my writing and over think submitting the final draft. Every single essay that I have had to write throughout this semester I have struggled with these problems. Particularly the research paper, since the paper was worth such a big percentage of the grade in the class. I was extremely self-conscious about submitting and writing the paper. I took a long time just to finish a rough draft. I reviewed the final draft for hours before submitting the paper. I also experienced the problem of being extremely self-conscious after I submitted the paper and question everything I choose to write on.

My writing skills which I have worked on over the few months I have been in English 102 have changed quite a bit in my opinion. There are many things which I have improved upon that were amongst my weaker writing skills when the year began. On the opposite side of that point, there are also many things which I still need to improve upon if I want to truly elevate my writing to a level that I will be confident in. Finally, I have gained new skills outside of writing from this class, particularly the activities which we did in class at various points throughout the year. These things all cumulate together to give me an appreciation of English courses which I did not previously have.

Every child learns differently; some learn easily, and some have difficulty processing the information that is given to them. My parents taught me the basics of reading and writing, they bought me books and letter blocks to form words with. In my experience, it was easy for me to learn how to read, although, my struggles began with writing. I can not put the blame on my teachers, although, they weren’t much help either. That was until I entered Middle School, my sixth grade English teacher changed my whole perspective of the subject.

My biggest struggle in writing would be starting my introduction because I never really know what information to add in my stating my thesis statement. Although, one way I’m trying to improve this struggle is by either adding small quotes or definitions to hook the reader and to add some info about my topic. Furthermore, one essay that I feel reflects my writing the best would be the midterm essay. I picked the midterm essay because even though it was timed I still took my time and carefully picked which examples I thought would best represent my opinions. In addition, I feel using the quote “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” by Nelson Mandela was a very powerful way to keep the reader interested. Ultimately, while I still haven’t overcome the obstacle of writing an introduction I know I’m slowly starting to find my way towards my goal of not struggling when it comes to starting my essays.