I Feel As A Writer

I learned a lot in this class during the semester. The first project was our learning narrative, it was not what I was expecting from a writing class. I expected we would be writing a many formal essays in MLA format with lots of sources and research. The first essay being a creative writing project was unexpected. At first writing a narrative from my personal experience was difficult for me. I had not written anything besides formal essays since high school. Writing something that was creative and expressive was an adjustment. After a few days of writing I began to really enjoy my learning narrative. I liked being able to express myself and my own experiences and share them with others.

Throughout this course, I was able to assess and evaluate my weaknesses and strengths in writing. This class has truly brought out my ability to write, a skill I did not believe I had. I now know what it takes to become a college-level writer. Also, at the beginning of the course I did not particularly enjoy writing. Now, however, I have a greater respect for

I have written more in the past year in this course than I probably wrote throughout high school career. This class made me notice that prewriting really does make a difference in the end result as well as having a peer critique your paper. Instead of writing a quick paper and just handing it in, I was actually forced to take the time out to write a rough draft, read my own work out loud, and revise my work. It helped me make my writing more organized and have a better flow throughout my paper In the future, I will continue to use this method as well as visit the many resource we have on campus that can give feedback what can make my paper better or just checking for grammar errors, spell check, and sentence fragments.

Over the past four months, I have made great strides as a writer. The area where I have seen the most growth is in my use of the writing process. Prior to my enrollment in this course, I would sit down and write all my papers in one sitting. This class has taught me how to lay out a plan for my papers. I have learned how to effectively brainstorm/research, draft, and revise my writings before I complete them. Also I have learned to not just stop there, instead I am now going back and reflecting on my work after I complete it. This allows me to identify where I prospered and also where my downfalls may have been. With this information, I am able to apply this to future writings of mine; lessons that will stay with me forever.

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.

I have never been the most talented writer nor the most creative. Although after taking this course I feel I am overall a better academic writer. The annotated bibliography really helped me to improve my academic phrasing and word choice. Oddly, the lectures I learned the most from is when you would take our titles or thesis statements and improve them to make them have a more efficient and academic tone. Although I never shouted out my examples in class I was able to understand your points, and take your academic tips to generate my own thesis statements and titles. I was also able to improve on my MLA format. As brutal as it seemed to deduct two points from each MLA mistake in the paper, it really helped me to focus on the little details and to use the Bedford Handbook when I was stuck on how to correctly cite sources. I know, almost for a fact, that I have improved and learned more in this English 1020 course than I did in any of my high school English

When I enrolled in this class, I was sure that it will influence the way I write and read. I have a relatively large experience with academic writing and reading; still, I would have benefited even from slight improvements in my approach, methods, and techniques I use for writing and reading assignments. Because of this class my reading, writing, and thinking processes became more efficient.

Writing is a skill that needs to be practiced. Before this class, I didn't care about the writing because my high school teachers didn't care about my writing, as long as I turn a paper, I would be fine. Now, at the end of my Comp 2 class, I can assure I have improved my skills. From simply using MLA 8th format to writing an ethnography, this class has helped me get a more advanced writing style to accomplish the requirements that higher education requires.

Personally, I feel like any good writer makes their writing come alive by making you feel not just for the characters, but with them. How do they do this? Writing therapy. Many writers tend to be so creative because they are conciously and subconsciously engaged in their writing. Even if they are not trying to deal with any issues that feel strongly about or are personal to them, it comes out in their writing. For me, my writing is this world where my characters can experience things I have seen or dealt with in some shape or form whether it happened in reality or only in my dreams. My writing takes shape from my characters and how they deal with these experiences.

I thoroughly enjoyed this semester, I felt more comfortable writing papers, typing the papers in the correct format, and setting up the citations correctly. We covered a wide variety of information during this course including useful resource tools, websites, writing styles, critical thinking skills, emotional intelligence, and leadership resilience. I learned something every week that I can implement not only in my professional life, but in my personal life as well.

During this semester, I have learned a great deal about my own writing, and writing in general. One of the main takeaways from this course for me was how to break down the intricate process of writing papers. In addition, I developed viable skills regarding going into more in-depth detail during each step of the writing process. I enjoyed having the freedom to write about a topic that I was able to choose. This allowed me to research and write about something that actually interested me immensely. Having to work with one topic for the entire semester taught me how to find reliable resources and how to pick out the essential research from each article.

From taking this course I have been able to improve many of my weaknesses, but there are still some that I need to work on. Overall I am becoming better at not procrastinating as much as I used to. This class has helped me to learn to take the little steps along the way because then there will not be as much work to do towards the end. This has also made me realize that the final product of my writing will turn out better because it will have had more time to develop, which means that there would have been more opportunities to proofread. I think by learning many styles of writing, such as paraphrasing, summarizing, analyzing, and researching; it has enabled me to be able to write more broadly. By knowing how to correctly use all of these kinds of writing styles, it will help me in the future for other classes because I will have the knowledge that I need to write these types of papers. I still procrastinate sometimes, but not as much as I used to. I will be able to improve on this as time goes along because I will become more motivated by seeing the end result, which usually would be better grades.

Like you, I think it is sometimes difficult to write about something which has no interest for you. You need to be creative, imaginative and try to take place of somebody else who like it. However, when it comes about something you love or which affect your feelings or your life, your writing should be fluid because you want to share with others and let them know your experience, your opinions and your thoughts. However, the fact that your see yourself as a creative writer should help you to come out with some good ideas no matter the subject. Then, even if your writing wont be fun all the time, it is always better to say something rather than keep silence. When you say something you can be corrected, but when you stay quiet, you could evolve

I knew when I first signed up for this class that I would have both write a lengthy research paper, and do extensive research. I felt confident that I could deliver in writing a well thought out and research paper. With that said, this class has given me new skills in terms of the writing process of a research paper, and also in what it means to be a conscious writer. While I admit I still need to improve in my editing process, I fell that this class helped me notice some of my flaws for which I plan to improve upon. Building off of WRD 103, I felt that in this term my grammar had improved. While I still made mistakes in grammar, I felt that in this quarter I faired much better than in the original WRD 103 class. For example, in my multisource exploratory essay I notice that for the most part my grammar was on point. I can attribute this to the timeliness in which I completed that paper. Similarly to what I notice in my WRD 103 class, the cohesiveness and grammar of my papers always improve when I have enough time to write my papers. Through this class and the quarter I also notice that the most important step in my writing process is the organizational part. Formulating my ideas on paper better before I actually start typing better prepares me for my writing. Another important aspect I picked up on was the analysis on my own work. Usually when I thought of analysis I always think of how I analyze someone else’s work, but I found that analyzing my own work, such as I did

When thinking back over all the things that I have learned over the course of the semester I feel like I can grasp previously learned topics more and I was even able to add on top of my knowledge skills that I probably should have known before college. Learning about paraphrasing and citing sources in my essays were a few of the topics that I had learn back in high school, but had not completely understood till after I took this course. My punctuation skills definitely have had some improvement over the past few weeks since we went over tool 14.