I Never Considered Myself A Bad Writer

From the time I was in about fourth or fifth grade I began to dislike certain subjects in school. I loathed everything about writing assignments. I didn’t write at home before that the thought of writing for myself never really occurred to me. I hated the deadlines the length requirements and I just tried to get them done and had no intention of writing well because I told myself I was a bad writer. I have never really known whether or not I truly am a bad writer. I continued these habits of just writing something down to get a decent grade all throughout school. I usually got an okay grade because I followed the prompt closely and did the minimum amount of work for the paper. I didn’t start the assignments until either the night before it was due. As I got older I would type the paper on my phone in school that day then print it off in the library moments before class. I continued writing in that awful ritual of complacency until the end of 11th grade. We had to write a paper on The Great Gatsby a book that I never read. I read couple of notes on the internet and then wrote the paper and never reread it or edited it all. I did my usual routine and followed the prompt and turned my paper in. When I got my paper back I was shocked to find out I didn’t get even a half decent grade I was given a zero. I went to my teacher after class to speak with him about the grade and he told me I got the grade that I deserved. He said I was lazy and never tried to truly work in

So, when I ask myself what kind of writer I am, the only answer I come up with is “not a very good one.” As far as me being able to write a college essay, I am fairly certain I am not at the same level as my fellow classmates. That being said, I hope that by the end of this term I don’t feel so intimidated by writing assignments. If there’s one thing I can say about myself as a writer,

In this article, “College Success” written by Bruce Beiderwell, Linda Tse, Thomas J. Lochhaas, and Nicholas B. deKanter, they explain the differences of high school and college writing, expectations of the instructors, and the types of papers that are assigned. Most students who struggle in their writing are usually still going through their transformation into college, without even knowing it. Though, how can you see these symptoms? “Students who struggle with writing in college often conclude that their high school teachers were too easy or that their college instructors are too hard” (Beiderwell, P. 1). When going into college there are all sort of ways of writing an essay, in high school you were taught the five paragraph basic

When I first thought about taking poetry writing the first thing that crossed my mind was when I took an intro poetry course at LaGuardia Community College. While the course was intriguing it was quite difficult because we had to break down every poem to discover the meaning. That meant paraphrasing the words into your own words without changing the meaning but also trying to understand exactly what is being said. I had always believed that this is an abstract idea; this course did not allow that. So when it was time to take poetry writing I avoided it until I could not anymore. However, as the course began I was pleasantly surprised at what I was able to learn these past seven weeks. One of the things that I was excited to discover was that

I remember when I first came to the Wilkes University, one of my edifier (?) (Friend, teacher, mother) told me "Don’t judge your class in the beginning, judge your class at the end of course”. In the beginning of my classes I was very nervous about how to write an essay. However, I believe my writing skills has effectively improved. To be honest, English 101 wasn’t an easy class for me in the beginning. College writing is entirely different from high school writing. I always have trouble with grammar when I write English essays, and it’s harder for me to learn and improve my skills in a short amount of time.

Poets, and the poetry they write, are fundamental to the society in which they exist. The Modern poet is no exception. With words as weapons, the poet often challenges the very beliefs that underpin their civilisation and cause their fellow citizens to reflect on the status quo. It is the effectiveness of the literary devices the poet uses that often means the message is felt at a heart level, not just the head. An essay can give a dissertation on an important topic but it is the poet, using anything from personification to onomatopoeia, metaphor to assonance, that creates such

I, one of millions of first-year college students, believe that I write bland essays due to the fact that my high school English teachers failed to teach me how to think clearly and creatively. For instance, with my twelfth English teacher, Mrs. Tuttle, there are many cases to which I felt she could’ve improved her teachings not only for me to understand how to write a well-developed paper but as well as others students. First case scenario being how she gave class activities and her teaching style. She had a way of giving activities based on the feeling of how she felt would be a good way for us to learn the material versus what we felt would be the best way to learn the material. These ways included little to no group work. Writing a bunch of illegitimate papers that would be graded by my peers who had little to no idea of what right or wrongs they were looking for. Thus for leaving me with an ambiguous reason to what my writings were lacking or why I never made anything higher than a C in her class. Another way would be the fact that she lived off the teaching theory of “if one can do it then all can do it”. This hands down was the number reason why I could never write a well thought out, clear and creative paper. With this method she felt that if Amanda Ho, class valedictorian, could write an outstanding paper, then the entire Class of 2015 could write one just as well. Never coming to an understanding that everyone wasn’t Amanda Ho, everyone didn’t have the brains

Furthermore, my initial knowledge of the writing process and stages of writing was pretty straight forward; hook, introduction, body paragraph, and conclusion. I also have always written a first draft and went through several stages of editing until the final draft was complete throughout my junior high writing experience. During the writing process, I always struggled with grammar and awkward phrasing, and even after several rounds of peer, parent, and individual editing I would always lose significant amount of points for conventional errors and awkward phrasing. Thus, my feelings towards writing were commonly negative and hateful both inside and outside the classroom. Therefore, in my mind writing was always considered an endless chore, one that was never practiced recreationally or creatively. Even though, I generally detested writing, I still found a slight sense of pleasure and fulfillment when I turned in a piece of writing that I had worked very

Throwing back my three years in high school, my writing skill was bad. In English class, when I was a Sophomore, my English teacher used to call me into her office. She told that my essay was full of bad grammars and too vague. As a result, she gave the lowest score in the class. Also even when we wrote the college application, most English teachers told my essays were too vague. Fortunately, after a few revise, it was getting better

Throughout the course of my writing career this semester at High Point University, I feel as if I have kept my reputation of being a good writer. In high school my papers were said to been adequate worked and excelled when it came to using good transitions and language. Given these factors, I came to college with the same attitude that I am a good writer, and will produce well written work whenever I am asked to submit an assignment as such. I feel as if I have not slacked off from this, and that I have only gotten better by utilizing feedback from my peers and professors that give constructive criticism. The constructive criticism from peers has helped due to it being from a more relatable person, it helps that it is from someone who is doing

I believe my skills as a writer are very well. I should note, the only writing that I have compared mine to is the students from my high school composition class. Unfortunately, I’m from a small town on the border of Kentucky, where many residents consider “ya’ll” and “wersh” real words being “you all” and “wash” respectively. My high school Advanced Composition class was a dual-credit course therefore, by taking Advanced Composition in high school, I’ve already earned the English 101 credit and this is my first exposure to a “real” college English/writing course. I expect that my writing skills will be humbled now that I am around other college students that understand proper English to a greater extent than the

Writing poetry is very stimulating if it is something people enjoy doing. Some writers do not have to think about what they want to write it just comes to mind. Most authors write about their life and what influenced them to write or become writers. Writers are physically, mentally, and emotionally ready to take on the task of writing. Such as writing poems, short stories, or novels. Some writers write about the good and some write about the bad; some even write about the good and the bad combined. Authors write to express themselves. Some authors write about what they have been through or what they have experienced in their life time. Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote in the modernist era and wrote mainly about

The goal that took the most effort and attention was “ I will use personification in order to make the setting, or environment, changing, inspiring, and a dynamic background.” This is because I, the poet, had to turn the setting into a dynamic flow guiding change to surge throughout the story. From the beginning, I had what some may call “Writer’s Block,” which caused me to have absolutely no idea of what to write. So, I turned on some music. While the song was playing, I would listen to every word and phrase of the lyrics, causing ideas to travel into my brain, out of my brain, and onto the paper. I had finally overcome my writer’s block and created a rough draft. The next day, I came into class realizing that it was peer-review day. My

Poetry has always intrigued me due to its musical nature. I appreciate the pairing of figurative language and ambiguity to express emotions and personal experiences in a distinct, original way. Over the past few years, I have written a lot of poems and lyrics as a means of sorting my thoughts and dealing with overwhelming emotions. Entering the course, I knew my struggles would not lie in writing poetry, but rather, through deciphering the meanings behind others’ poems. I questioned my ability to annotate poems and write about them in an academic format. In my self-assessment, I identified my greatest writing weakness as “my inability to be concise” because "I think of numerous ways to express [an idea or thought] and have trouble

In my preparation for this essay I thought that there was going to be very little that I would learn about the elements of poetry. This is not because I am an expert and have nothing new to learn, but rather the opposite. I have never really spent the time to break down and appreciate poetry. One of the reasons I think that I haven’t spent the time on poetry is due to my reading habits. I usually read to gather information and poetry is on the other end of the spectrum. Fredrick Gruber sums this up, “Poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.” (Gruber) Having said all of this though, I did see a couple of things that I could apply to my own writing. I will first start off with some elements of poetry that I