In high school I took an honors English course and the AP English and composition course, which

Ms. Czapski’s 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th Hour Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Classes

Before my ENC1101 class I had no idea how to write college leveled essays. I felt like a lost puppy wondering in the woods. In the start of this class I felt stressed out because I wasn’t so sure if my writing was good enough. I spent days just trying to come up with the right ideas, but most of all I was afraid to fail the assignment. It felt like I was having writers block throughout all my essays. Even though there is a writing center in Valencia Community College and a SL tutor where I could’ve got help from I choose not to. I was afraid for someone to look at my essays and not like it or just tell me everything I did wrong. Which would have just brought me down. But in reality I have come to understand that feedback is a great way for improvement.

Throughout the first semester, I already feel as though I have learned multiple skills that push my writing to a higher level. I have never worked with “They Say, I Say” before, and all of the readings that we have done so far associated with that book added new aspects to my writing than ever before. In particular, I have noticed a large change in my ability to introduce and summarize a piece of writing that I am analyzing before adding my own opinion or take on a subject. Instead of consistently summarizing points of the piece throughout my writing, I improved upon my skills and can now effectively and concisely summarize the piece before introducing any of my own opinions. Additionally, the class discussion that we had about the purpose of a concluding paragraph, in my opinion, helped improve my skills in answering the question: so what?

In high school I challenged my writing skills by taking advanced placement language and literature. Both courses assigned essays that required scholarly text to support my points and ideas stated throughout the paper. My biggest takeaway from these classes was that having textual evidence from reliable sources will help strengthen my writing, also known as ethos to persuade the audience. During my junior year I grasped the concept of ethos, pathos, and logos, how each could be used to shape writing concepts or perspectives. Personally it takes me a little bit of time to adjust from different writing contexts that need to be addressed, but I always thoroughly analyze instructions to reach success. I improve as a student when I practice analyzing

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

I was taught the traditional five paragraph essay was the correct way to go. Again my world was opened up and new ideas came hammering in. I observed how my writing and thinking was loathingly filled with flaws, as my work was torn apart right in front of me. This particular course worked so much in my favor because I was open to changing my style. As an example in my first inventive writing lies a faulty pronoun and antecedent, “It seems fair to claim everyone has their own meandering process,” in my next essay a similar mistake is made, “Someone can have straight A’s for life, but they will never be able to tell who they are,” but in my next two pieces of writing no pronoun and antecedent disagreements can be found. The criticism, critiques, and my own willingness all helped me develop a better style of

My work with writing has always been some kind of issue for me in a way, but in some weird way I have always enjoyed it. Throughout this course I built more skills in my writing than ever before, I got better reading and writing skills, and I was able to get some successful essays while using proper grammar. English has always be some kind of struggle for me in high school that I had to take tutoring for a couple years in it, but with the marks I have got so far in this class I’m pretty impressed about how far I have come with my grades in this course, than what I got when I was in high school English class. At the beginning of this course, for my “This I Believe” final draft, I put the best effort I could do into

In high school I did not enjoy English class at all, but now in college I have a new found appreciation for it. I’ve learned many things about my writing, such as what helps me to write more effectively, different methods to better my writing, and ways to improve my grammar. Nevertheless, I believe that there will always be something from my writing that could use additional editing or revision. There’s always room for improvement for my literary and writing skills. Summarily, thanks to my Composition I class and my professor, I have learned and improved so much in my writing and reading. Writing assignments had always been stressful and annoying, but now I see them as a doable

Throughout the year the I have constantly focused on getting better at making concise arguments that focus on my argument and are supported by my research. I started off not being very effective at making the best arguments because I made more generalized claims than specific points. This has made a lot of my writing disjointed and more like an overview with a lot of information, but as the semester moved on my arguments became more concise. This is very useful when it comes to making presentations and technical writing. As an engineer this will come in handy later down the road as technical writings become much more prominent in my professional career. Another goal that I was able to accomplish is the integration of different forms of

For a student to make real improvements and know what to expect out of college courses, they have to act on a teacher’s guidance. Through looking back at graded papers, listening to peer reviews and using resources, I was able to utilize my last semester of highschool English and advance weak areas on my writing. Through extended self-review of my writing and outside resources like paperrater.com, I have cut down on diction errors in my papers. For punctuation errors, refreshing my memory on rules for quotations, learning from past mistakes on papers and peer review has resulted in better grades and less deductions. Less punctuation faults has also enhanced my writing voice, as the reader is able to better understand the ideas I am trying to portray. These changes have not only benefited my writing for Columbus State English 1100. I have noticed that I am more careful of using correct diction in everyday conversations, texts and online communication. This will potentially prevent me from looking like a fool in front of friends and family. Most importantly though, noticing and making improvements to my weaknesses has helped prepare me for the challenging college classes I will have next

My struggle with clarity and conciseness is keeping my thoughts organized while focusing on the subject I have chosen to write about. Getting to “the point” takes longer for me than it should. My thoughts are conveyed as a “story” opposed to a brief explanation.

As I came to English 45, I thought it was going to be a tough class, because it's an accelerated class. An accelerated class tends to be a fast-past class that covers 2 classes in one. When I got to English 45 I assumed that it wouldn’t be tough, although the results were opposites, English 45 gave me many challenged to face throughout the whole semester. Throughout this semester English 45 has thought me many different techniques to improve my English and writing. Ever since the first day, I felt confident about everything, although my confidence wasn’t always right because I learned that the grading and essay structure is different. When I got back the first essay that we did, I saw the challenges that I would be facing throughout the semester, because of each teacher/professor grades differently.

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

This year, my English class felt like a major transition from last year’s Civilization and Literature class, as one concept that was put into emphasis this year was having your work not entirely based on effort. Middle school English seemed to favor writing with effort and length, despite putting attention to grammar, advanced thinking, and quality content. Consequently, my goal in partaking in the English honors option was to make the transition from “quality over quantity,” and I think I have made an improvement on that goal. My writing isn’t perfect, but it’s improving at a good pace. I believe the extra effort I put into the class, ranging from extra credit opportunities to long-term essays, is making a difference in the quality of my work. Over time, small things I check for in my writing, from being precise in explaining to elaborating on ideas, will benefit me in the long run as I continue my education here at BHS and college. My strengths in English are my inventive and resourceful thinking process, and my diligent work ethic to complete assignments to the best of my ability. Yet, not everything in my work for the class is perfect, similar to my writing. I can put in plenty of time to write a paper, but still, miss the mark when it comes to a certain area of writing. My struggles in English are my confidence in my work and trying to maintain clear and precise writing. Looking at my portfolio, not every assignment received an A or A+, and that's not necessarily a bad

When I entered more regular classes in my junior year of high school, particularly my expository writing class, I did not do well. I was accustomed to doing the bare minimum, putting very little effort in, as that was what was required to pass my special education classes. However, it soon became clear that my expository class would be challenging because my teacher expected great things from her students. Once I realized this, I threw myself into the work. I would go to class after school to ask questions about the content that was covered, as well as ask my parents for feedback on my papers. I passed the class with a C, rather than my usual A, but my writing skills increased exponentially. The C grade was obviously not what I had hoped for, but it meant more to me than my A’s. There were many times that I struggled with self-doubt, wondering if I had made a mistake in my request to