Why I Hate English Class

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.

I immensely struggled when writing. Taking my scrambled thoughts and uncoordinated analysis and converting it into clean and understandable words on a page was arduous. I could not express my thoughts in proper academic format. I understood the importance of writing to every subject. It was essential that I learn to condense my ideas and feeling into coherent written word. After much debate, I decided that the best way to improve my writing skills was to take an advanced English course.

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.

The classes that have been observed and that will be analyzed in this essay are the English Honors and AP English courses which took place at Cerritos High School during the second semester of the academic year 2015/2016. This analysis will focus on the instructor of said classes, David Hind, and on their curriculum, specifically on how the assessment of the students’ learning took place.

Applying the writing skills learned in English 101, which includes determining audience and purpose, organization, and grammar and mechanic usage, is also a major goal for students in their second semester of freshman English. The ability for a writer to determine their audience and purpose is essential for all writing. In my proposal essay advocating a plan to stop texting and driving I said “As the number of collisions from cell phone related distractions rises, something must be done to significantly reduce the regularity of this event. This problem affects all age groups, sexes, and ethnicities and it is in our hands as drivers to create safer, more responsible roadways.” In these two sentences, I stated the purpose of my argument which

After a grueling first quarter, I was completely miserable, with terrible grades, low self-esteem, and no end in sight. I was hanging on to the hope that there would be some epiphany moment, a moment where suddenly my writing soared, along with my grades. That change did happen, but not all at once‒ it began during the third quarter, when my teacher, Ms. Boynton, asked me to stay after class, along with five other students. She asked if we would each be interested in participating in The Atlantic and College Board Essay Contest, in which we would each submit an analysis of a famous American speech. I was truly stunned that she had chosen me over so many other students in the class, since I had felt so lost for so many weeks, but it was exactly what I needed as motivation to keep on improving my writing. As I worked closely with her on my contest submission and other class work, I came to realize how much she cared about me and wanted to help me succeed. With that being said, she never made it easy; she continually pushed me, knowing that I could always do better if I set my mind to it. Last September, I began her demanding course with the intention of purely surviving, not necessarily thriving, but that

The final weeks of my first semester in college are coming to an end. My Columbus State english class has written a total of three projects, and a total of four papers. There are a lot of grammatical issues that, at the beginning of the year, I had issues on. However, I have improved on these errors drastically, and have become a better writer because of it. Even though I am still working on many aspects of my writing, I do believe that I have become a better writer. I believe that my biggest issues while writing are run on sentences, making a strong thesis statement, and having quotes stand alone at the beginning of a paragraph.

Before I enrolled in this Pacer English class I would generally study in my room, sitting on my bed, or I would sit at the kitchen table and study. I had a many advantages to doing this, because I would typically do it in the mornings, after my classes, when my husband was at work. I did have some disadvantages to this, because when I would sit in my bed to do my homework, I would get very restless or I would have cramps in my neck, causing me to want to quit studding for that time. When I would sit with my back against the head board and pillows all behind me I found that this made me feel more comfortable when I was sitting in my bed. The disadvantage to sitting at the kitchen table seemed more uncomfortable to me, because the chairs seemed hard after sitting there for quite some time. When I study, I try to sit for hours at a time to try and get all my work done at one time. I made sure that no matter where I was studying,

How long was I going to continue to ignore the fact that I desperately needed help with my writing? Reflecting back even in high school it seems I’ve always had the same problems when it came to my writing. Maybe it was the fact that I was too lazy to take the extra time out to write out a rough draft, unless of course it counted towards my grade, or maybe it was the fact that I never paid attention to my grammar because I was always rushing. Either way it goes once I got to college I realized I wasn’t going to be able to skate by with just putting my initial ideas on paper and turning them in, if I really wanted to get a good grade I would have to work for it.

Working a full-time job, raising children, and attending college are not an easy task as many people could think. Parents always have difficulties in managing and prioritizing their time. I had to sacrifice my social life as well as my family this semester because I needed to focus on my English 1100 class. MacCaughey, who is my English 1100 instructor, has helped me grow as a writer because of the way he taught us on how to be a good writer. My confidence as a writer had always been low and I never had a clear direction in writing. Through this class, I was able to learn how to develop my ideas into writing process. Ascending the banisters of my writing process, I greatly learned about the narrative style of writing, the formal way to critical analyze a text, and write a response about it. I also learned how to write a persuasive text in a conveying manner and answering a question with the help of a secondary source more of

Working a full-time job, raising children, and attending college are all not easy tasks, as many would agree. As a parent, I have difficulties in managing and prioritizing my time. Hence, I am forced to sacrifice many things, including my social life and spending quality time with my family. This semester I had to cope with many personal issues, including focusing on my English 1100 class. Amidst all that I am very grateful to my instructor McCaughey. Not only has he been super supportive but also definitely helped me grow as a writer. With his style of teaching and as well as a motivator, I tackled my writing issues. Through this class, I gained confidence and was able to learn about how to develop my ideas in a writing process .I learned

I can still remember my heart pounding out of my chest. It was my first time in Writing 1, and my nerves were mostly the result of a friend’s advice. Winter quarter, my friend told me about her struggles in her writing class and she advised me not to take Professor Bernstein for Writing because as she said “he is really tough and a very hard grader.” However, I had no other option but to take writing with Professor Bernstein because all the other writing 1 classes conflicted with my schedule. Nevertheless, nine weeks have past since I first stepped foot in Writing 1, and I can certainly say that I have learned more than I ever expected. Yes, it is true, this class has been a challenge like no other, especially for me, being that English is

Writing has always been a tough subject for me. As long as I can remember, I struggled with reading which, reduced my ability to find words for writing. I tend to have awkward sentences and find it difficult to have my ideas flow from one to the other. I was nervous to take a college writing class but, I’m glad I started with Writing 95 because it has helped me prepare for Writing 121. Overall I feel like my reading and writing skills were high enough for this class because I found the work to be feasible. My work has improved from the beginning of the class and I feel more confident in my writing and reading skills.

Thank you to all the students, professors, and my coach for your support, encouragement, and feedback. As I previously stated in my introductory post, I love read but hate to write, which was probably not the best words to say entering an English class, but with your support, not only have I made it through this course, but I have also enjoyed the journey.

I am a science major and I have always minimized English Language courses because I thought I was already very good at writing. I did not think I would ever really need to use what I would acquire from such a course. When I came to Montgomery College and I was going to take the course English 101, my expectations were that I would have no difficulty scoring good grades in the course and I would learn nothing really helpful from it. This is because in high school, I put very little effort into my English class, but I had impressive scores in writing. I began to understand that I am not as good as I thought I was at writing when I started taking english courses in college. During my previous English course, English 102, I was able to improve certain aspects of my writing which I am glad for. For instance I am confident that my essay structures are well built. But some things in writing remained a challenge for me. I am glad that I am taking an English course that would permit me to work on things I thought I was already good at like awareness in writing essays and proper use of grammar and punctuation