I Was A Horrible Writer

Everyone on the planet has a goal set in life, but only a handful attempt to improve to obtain their goal by studying the subject their goal is in. In my English class, English 101 this quarter I was astonished by how much I had progressed as a writer sharpening my writing skills and also learned a lot about writing that I hadn’t learned before. In my writing portfolio for this quarter I had to write an autobiography essay, a research essay, and this reflection essay to develop my writing skills better. The writing assignments were fun to do because it challenged me to work on essays of different styles that were new to me. The essay assignments helped me grow as a better writer that gave me the self-confidence and skills to take on the world on my own.

English class has never been my strong suite. I always had to work twice as hard in English then I did in any other class. Writing paper always had me stressed and overwhelmed, I felt discouraged in my work. l never seemed to be able to get to the level I wanted to. I would try my hardest and paid attention in class, but when it came to writing the paper none of that seemed to help. I think that my experience in English Composition 1 has helped gain and grow in some areas, but I don’t think that it highlights a well-written college essay. Some elements that I worked to improving was introduction paragraphs, tone, style, and thesis statements.

Throughout this semester we have had to write many types of essays. Although this is a college English class there is still room for improvement. I made much improvement during the semester of the class. I was able to identify my weaknesses. I learned how to make improvements to the areas I was having problems in. Although each essay we did was different I was able to begin with one essay and throughout the semester turn it into two other essays. I was able to change my style of writing to fit the type of audience I was working with. I will continue to work on my writing and keep improving it.

     As writers, many students write to the expectations of their professors and not to their fullest potential. Throughout English 101 I had been writing only to please my professor or to fill the basic requirement to pass English. I always felt that my writing ability was never enough for my professors throughout the previous years. They always wanted clear and concise essays, which for some reason was unreachable by me. However, starting college and taking English 101 helped me with my weaknesses and changed my technique of writing essays. My experience in English 101 taught me to write to my fullest potential and to write what I felt; rather then writing what was required.

Throughout the school year of 2015-2016 at the Founders Academy, I have wrote numerous essays, with generally positive results. Several of the essays exceeded expectations, while others reached expectations to a modest extent, but all of the essays were supported by the writing skills that I had learned that year, regardless of my strengths or weaknesses with these skills. These techniques vary extensively, from comparing and contrasting ideas in a text to editing and revising essays for quality results, which is proven in my writing portfolio.

Have you ever felt incompetent because you wrote a horrible essay, or have you ever saved a whole essay for the night before? Have you ever wanted to die because you are writing the absolute most boring topic ever? If yes was the answer to any of those questions, I suggest taking Writing in the Liberal Arts with Professor Hilsher at Houghton College. It benefited me greatly. Before I took this class, I did not care if my essays were mediocre or boring. I just wanted to hand them in. Writing 101 has changed my perspective on writing. I learned many specific things that cleared my writing up, writing a rough draft first is important, and finding ways to incorporate passions into all pieces makes a difference.

The Second Essay allowed to use my Critical Approaches and Self-Critique. Third essay required me to interpret or evaluate a text. In the fourth essay, it brought everything together that I learned during the entire semester all of the skills together helped me to. rite MLA style papers with citations and references, and this has helped me learn how to cite quotations properly and how to use quotations in the text of my writing. I used to make mistakes on these papers, and professors would always correct my citations, but now, I have mastered MLA style, and I know I can master other citation styles as well. This will help me in just about every class I have in school, as many classes use this common form of citation, so I have learned a skill that will be valuable for many years. Second, I have learned a lot about another country that I did not know about or understand before. We read "Two Kinds “and "Two Kinds” by Amy Tan,, and I became very interested in china after reading this, I believe she a very influential author. The book tells the

During the fall semester I enrolled in an English 111 course to help improve my writing skills. Throughout the semester I was instructed to write four papers, not including this one. The topics for my essays were about; the value of education, victims and creators, a report essay, and last but not least a review essay. Each essay became more challenging than the previous one. As each essay came along, I applied the skills I learned in class and necessary peer evaluations to correct my mistakes so that I could get better at writing.

When I found out I was taking English 115 I thought, “Oh great, another English class and I am terrible at writing essays.” My expectations for this class were low because I thought it would be a continuation of a mix of AP Language and Literature and I drained of those two classes. As the first week passed and I gave myself time to read the syllabus, I found the structure of the class to seem quite intriguing. It is split up into three sections; project web, project space and project text. Although there were essays for each section, I wasn’t as intimidated because there were projects and online Moodle assignments that went along with them. I was able to use my creativity for the projects which helped me better understand the subject, so I found the essay writing process less stressful. After finishing English 115 I can successfully say that I have become a better writer, I have fluently kept a style that works for me and I feel more confident in writing and reading lengthy works. I have finally grasped skills that I couldn’t quite understand in high school, like transitions and thesis statements. I am not as intimidated to read an eight-page text and I no longer skip to the end to see how many pages there are in a text. My perspective on critical reading and writing has positively changed because I understand why I should read and write, not because I have to.

At the beginning, I learned how to write my paragraphs properly and towards the end, I learned how to write an essay. For example, when I'm writing a paragraph, it's important to be more clear and specific in my topic sentence to get the reader to understand my point of view and to draw the reader's attention. For example, in my essay, I wrote “arranged marriage” as my topic. My professor taught me the correct way to write “my arranged marriage” as my topic. Then, I prove the topic sentence by giving clear examples and details information. At last, the conclusion of the paragraph has to wrap up the whole topic. Then, I learned how to write an essay with a better introduction, background information, and thesis. Also, I learned to have more examples and supporting details in paragraphs by comparing and contrasting, cause-and-effect, and problem solution. Before taking this class, I did not know how to write an essay. After learning this information about writing an essay, I can write a good

My writing journey this semester has been a roller coaster. Since the beginning of this course I have improved in so many different areas. When I first began in this class, I didn’t have a clue how to start my essays. I wasn’t very good with being descriptive either. On top of that, revising was something I hated to do. My writing process was very messy and organization was never something I considered when writing a paper. Since taking this class my skills in organization, revision, and description have improved tremendously.

As a writer, especially as an international student, I should make extra efforts to write a good essay. In the class ESL273, I have learned how to write analytical essays with critical thinking, how to create an effective introduction with background information and a clear thesis statement, and how to organize an essay with the writing process skills, such as outlining and brainstorming. In addition, we have peer review activities in the class, which is a good opportunity for me to learn from my classmates and I can identify my writing weaknesses from the feedback. With all these writing skills that I learned from the ESL273 class, I think I have some strength in writing an essay because I am not a beginner anymore.

Throughout elementary, middle, and high school I have never improved and gained as much knowledge about essay writing than I have in one semester of college english. Language arts, being one of my weaker subjects, made this course quite difficult for me. I have learned about different types of essays that I had never heard of before enrolling in this course, such as the interview essay. At the beginning of this course I would have guessed that I were going to fail because of the little knowledge I had. I never imagined I would have learned as much as I have, and improved my work and processes to the extent that I have.

I learnt many ways to improve my essays such as using Criterion, an online resource to grade my essay and check for errors. I also learnt to cite my work using MLA format. I learnt to edit my essays for grammatical errors, structure of the essay, substances and style based on the rhetorical pentad. I am ready to listen to my peers’ comments. In fact, I feel more confident to present my work to the instructor after getting reviews from my peers.

Writing is not just as simple as putting words down on a document or a piece of paper, it is a process. Within this intricate process are steps that involve more than just writing, such as critical thinking, planning, and editing. Using these steps has not only helped me when planning an essay but also when composing one. Throughout this course, I have managed to improve many skills and gain a lot of strengths, but I still possess some weaknesses. Overall, I believe my strengths have definitely outgrown these weaknesses and have led to a better, more high-quality writing process which leads to improved essays.