I Was A Great Reader Essay

Upon entering Columbia College, writing was one of my weaker areas. It was very important that I gained the necessary knowledge and confidence to become a better writer. I didn’t know how to express myself and felt as though my writing was not my interest. As a result of taking English 101, I have gained a better understanding on how to properly research and build a satisfactory paper. Every paper that was assigned seemed like a struggle to complete. Before entering this class, I did not know the meaning of a thesis or why it was important, however, I obtained this skill quickly. I noticed that every paper has an argument and the thesis helps clarify the rebuttal. Now, I have a new outlook on writing. It’s a way to express my thoughts and allow others to see things through my eyes. There is no doubt that I still have a long way to go, but I know if I continue to write, I will get better. Just as I developed more skills in class, the various papers assigned helped to better structure the writer in me. In addition, the subject areas were not only interesting, but very informative and made it much easier to write about my experiences.

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

Memory is a powerful concept. Often when an individual undergoes a traumatic situation, the ramifications of these actions seep into an individualfs psyche unknowingly. In effect this passes through memory and becomes sub-consciously buried within a personfs behavioural patterns generally. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink explores the concept of a young mans subconscious desire for a woman whom he gcanft remember to forgeth (1Memento) as she is so deeply inlaid within his soul.

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.

Research types of writings at college helped me strengthen my writing skills because as I started to research on a topic, not only I learned more in depth, but also learned how to draw further connections outside of the course(class). I want to improve my writings in making correct connections and organizing ideas. Sometimes, I misunderstand the readings and end up making the wrong connections. In fact, my ideas are all over the place whenever I try to make connections, which does not clearly show that I have understood the assignment. These mistakes often led to downside of my grades. The most useful advice I received that helped me improve my writing is that “the word ‘writing’ actually means to put things together, so don’t be afraid of express your opinions in your writing your opinion.” This encourage me not to be afraid of writing and expressing my opinions.

While attending writing class, I learned about the 4 steps in writing, bases for revising, organizing, and connecting specific information, and I also learned about the different types of essays such as descriptive, narrative, process, cause and effect and argumentative essay. I have been a student at Milwaukee Area Technical College for 1 semester, and over the course of my enrollment I have grown and learned more that I knew prior to attending this writing course. Participating in this writing class has taught me so much more than stuff about literature and language, it has taught me another way of expressing myself. I have learned here how to write and express myself, how to think for myself, and how to find the answers to the things that I don 't know. Most importantly I have learned how important technique, outlines and organization are. My goal in this paper is to inform writers about how my writing skills have improved.

In high school, I took both AP English Language and AP English Literature. These courses prepared me well for college composition courses, but left me in the dark regarding the personal style development in writing and writing patterns. I was trapped in the high school, five-paragraph essay form that constricted my thoughts for so long. Discourse 300 enabled me to move past the form and explore new ways to compose writing. This in turn has made my thoughts more complex and concise. I have learned to sustain a logical argument in a much more organized manner and justify it as well. My writing was finally rid of all the “fluff” and “padding” that was a necessity in high school to reach a word count. Another improvement I made

During my English courses throughout high school, I learned many things from writing simple journals, research papers, and a single term paper. During high school, I was laid back and procrastinated for much of my work. During the latter part of high school when I wrote my term paper my senior year, I found out that working a little every night writing a few paragraphs helped me out greatly. I was not just throwing something together just to get the grade and the paper finished. I spent time on the paper and

When writing my papers in English I was never sure what topic, I wanted to write about. I rotated between two, one being “The Mistreatment of Animals in Zoos” and the second and my main topic being “Is College Worth the Cost.” When writing these papers, I noticed something about myself. I had grown as a writer compared to when I first walked into English 1100, I had some writing experience but not much my grammar lacked and I was the queen of sentence fragments. Throughout the semester during English 1100, my writing skills improved. From learning, how to format works cited page correctly to learning how to analyze a source. My writing improved wonders with each paper. My paper I, I struggled extremely with formatting issues and how to

Unlike reading, when writing, it is important that grammar, spelling and vocabulary terms are used correctly, therefore restricting me from writing in the way that I would prefer. The most stressed phrase while in high school was, "It is not the content of the essay, but rather the mechanics of grammar and speech that are most prominent." Unfortunately, I have never been one to enjoy the art of writing. In fact, I was recently given a diagnostic test, determining at which level I write and whether or not I should be upgraded to a higher achieving English class. Unfortunately, I did not pass the test with flying colors. This was not due to the fact that I am incapable of writing a good paper, but rather that I am unable to write in a limited amount of time, using the emphasized principles of correct; grammar, vocabulary and spelling. In the reading, Shitty First Drafts, by author Anne Lamott, it is a fact that in order to write a brilliant paper, a first draft must be created. According to Lamott, "The Only way I can get anything written at all is

This semester one of the skills I continue to excel in is researching. I have always been a fan of doing tons of research for an assignment before

Teachers, parents, and friends often tell students exactly what the writing process should entail and how long it should take. However, the older I get, the more I realize that the writing process varies not only from person to person, but also from one writing project to the next. Throughout my years of life, I have written countless papers, ranging from a persuasive speech to an extensive research paper, and each project requires an altered version of my personal writing process. While each individual has his own writing process, there can be many similarities between different writing processes. Finding one’s individual writing process takes trial, error, and repetition. When an individual finally uncovers his unique writing process, better thought, work, and writing is produced.

English is a hard language to learn, for there are numerous elements of effective usage and writing. Many people, including me, struggle in writing because of a lack of knowledge. Since middle school, English was not a strong suit of mine. I struggled with the simplest of tasks often taking a considerably longer time to complete a task than the other students. Unmotivated teachers and a lack of interest resulted in remedial writing skills. To put it simply, I had little confidence in my writing and I dreaded taking the class because of the writing involved. In spite of my fears, I took the course and I was able to perfect and challenge my mediocre writing skills.

Since beginning to write papers in English class, I have had countless successes and failures. While many of my English classes have taught me how to improve my writing, I have not learned very much in others. My most recent English class was last year, my sophomore year. My class was particularly undersized; therefore, it gave each student the opportunity to have additional individual attention. Throughout the class I experienced high points, weaknesses, and even difficulties that I never overcame. Overall, my writing skills improved, but only marginally.

Writing has always been something I dread. It’s weird because I love talking and telling stories, but the moment I have to write it all down on paper, I become frantic. It’s almost as if a horse race just begun in my mind, with hundreds of horses, or words, running through my mind, unable to place them in chronological order. Because I struggle to form satisfying sentence structure, it takes me hours, sometimes even days, to write one paper. It’s not that I think I’m a “bad writer,” I just get discouraged easily. Needless to say, I don’t think highly of my writing skills. When I was little I loved to both read and write. I read just about any book I could get my hands on, and my journal was my go to for my daily adventures. Although it’s