Individual Exploratory Project

I have written more in the past year in this course than I probably wrote throughout high school career. This class made me notice that prewriting really does make a difference in the end result as well as having a peer critique your paper. Instead of writing a quick paper and just handing it in, I was actually forced to take the time out to write a rough draft, read my own work out loud, and revise my work. It helped me make my writing more organized and have a better flow throughout my paper In the future, I will continue to use this method as well as visit the many resource we have on campus that can give feedback what can make my paper better or just checking for grammar errors, spell check, and sentence fragments.

When I first started this course I didn’t know what to expect. I really enjoyed writing but there was a lot of areas that I needed to work on. When I first started to review the modules I was blown away by all the helpful sites that were at my disposition. The Power points and different sites completely changed my whole perspective of writing to a whole new dimension. Thanks to the modules I am more confident right now before I even begin an essay. I remember in the past how beginning an essay was so difficult for me because I didn’t know how to even start. In this course I have learned how to begin an essay, how to manipulate information, and how to use in-text documentation properly. These are just some of the few things that I will definitely be taking with me in the future for my courses and personal growth.

This class has been a big eye opener for me and I will be taking a lot of this information with me as I continue to complete other courses. What I have learned the most would be dealing with time-management and how to improve my essays by improving my writing skills. It is important to me to continue to improve on my writing as will help me become a better writer in the future.

Throughout this course, I was able to assess and evaluate my weaknesses and strengths in writing. This class has truly brought out my ability to write, a skill I did not believe I had. I now know what it takes to become a college-level writer. Also, at the beginning of the course I did not particularly enjoy writing. Now, however, I have a greater respect for

2. My actual score had me ranging from high to low - Initiator (thirteen), Encourager (eight), Gatekeeper and Summarizer (seven), and Harmonizer (six).

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.

I hope to learn a lot during this course, but I mainly want to enhance my writing abilities. The ability to have a professional tone and style in all of my technical and academic writing is important. I want to be able to be correct and concise, without lacking any essential information. Furthermore, knowing when to apply different styles of writing to different audiences is important. Lastly, learning all of the grammar that I tend to forgot about such as, semicolons and colons, and when to use them. Overall, I’m excited to take this class and I’m ready to put in my full effort to receive the grade I want to

Before this class I had a general idea of what it was but rarely placed much emphasis on it. Now I could not see myself ever constructing another paper without it. This sequence of brainstorming/research, drafting, and revision allows writers to take their raw ideas, build upon them, and develop them into scholarly writings. Ever since my enrollment in this course I have taken brainstorming and research much more seriously because I realized it is vital to the success of your paper. It is the origin of your whole paper this means it is imperative that you stay focussed and are thorough in your initial research. Before this course I would just google a very specific topic and get frustrated if it did not yield the results I had hoped for. This course taught me to start off broad and trim down my results while using search engines in order to obtain the most relevant information. The first time I reaped the benefits of this was working on my synthesis paper. I actually included this quote in my final synthesis paper draft "My purpose in life is to create change and give people an opportunity that they lack and to be able to bring that platform". I pulled this quote from research I did for the February 19th Weekly Write. I worked hard in my initial research to gather ideas and it paid off as it led me to this very powerful quote. Two more areas in the writing process I have started to place a heavy emphasis on because of this course are the drafting and revision. Oppose to cramming in a research paper on the last night like I did for my senior exit research paper and not putting forth my best work. I now construct a working draft early on in the process and continue to revise it as I develop my paper into the final product. With this I have been able to develop a much better understanding of my topics and have been able to eliminate many grammatical mistakes that I typically would have

The course definitely changed the way I approached writing a paper. One day in lecture you quoted Ernest Hemmingway saying, “The first draft of anything is shit.” This changed the way I approached and wrote papers. I used to start papers the night before, barely look over them and making few changes. This course encouraged me to outline, write a rough draft and constantly review then finalization the paper. Peer review before this class I though was pointless because most student hardly pay attention to the paper and usually wrote “good job.” The students in the class actually read my paper and gave honest feedback and ways to improve it. Also to have a teacher read your draft and give feedback with what is wrong and ways to help the quality of the paper helped greatly. This English class was definitely different than high school English.

The first way this course has helped me is by introducing me to annotating article which I know will be helpful for me in Comp II in helping me formulate my research papers and in turn achieving my Comp II goals. The second way I believe this course has helped me and will be useful to me in other courses is by showing me how to organize my paper in a logical manner and be more mentally creative when describing a situation or event. The last way I believe this course has helped me is by teaching me how to be more descriptive, how to focus on details and how to transition smoothly when writing, which is something that I believe will be useful in any class when writing any paper not just in English. These particular skills were most useful in helping me write my Film Review, “ The American Dream.” “The seamless storyline wouldn't be anything if it wasn’t complemented by the sensational acting done mostly by Chris and his son Christopher. To be more specific, the scene where Chris was shown crying on the bathroom floor after his son Christopher went to sleep, due to his confound embarrassment of him not being able to provide proper shelter for his son.” In just these two simple sentence I show my abilities of how to connect one idea to the next and still have it flow smoothly while at the same time I am showing my abilities of how I was focused on the detail of the movie and yet still very descriptive while explaining it, which is why this is my favorite

The company should accept this project. The project payback period is between 2 to 3 years.

I thoroughly enjoyed this semester, I felt more comfortable writing papers, typing the papers in the correct format, and setting up the citations correctly. We covered a wide variety of information during this course including useful resource tools, websites, writing styles, critical thinking skills, emotional intelligence, and leadership resilience. I learned something every week that I can implement not only in my professional life, but in my personal life as well.

During this semester, I have learned a great deal about my own writing, and writing in general. One of the main takeaways from this course for me was how to break down the intricate process of writing papers. In addition, I developed viable skills regarding going into more in-depth detail during each step of the writing process. I enjoyed having the freedom to write about a topic that I was able to choose. This allowed me to research and write about something that actually interested me immensely. Having to work with one topic for the entire semester taught me how to find reliable resources and how to pick out the essential research from each article.

I feel that the biggest change to my writing this semester is in the way I organize myself for assignments. I was homeschooled and did all my assignments online. Making the change to a classroom environment was difficult for me due to my Asperger’s and learning about how to organize all aspects of my writing has been a challenge. I feel that I have improved as the semester progressed. I would like to discuss each aspect of the writing process and how my skills have improved by taking this class. I will be able to use the organizational process in my future career as a film maker and director.

From taking this course I have been able to improve many of my weaknesses, but there are still some that I need to work on. Overall I am becoming better at not procrastinating as much as I used to. This class has helped me to learn to take the little steps along the way because then there will not be as much work to do towards the end. This has also made me realize that the final product of my writing will turn out better because it will have had more time to develop, which means that there would have been more opportunities to proofread. I think by learning many styles of writing, such as paraphrasing, summarizing, analyzing, and researching; it has enabled me to be able to write more broadly. By knowing how to correctly use all of these kinds of writing styles, it will help me in the future for other classes because I will have the knowledge that I need to write these types of papers. I still procrastinate sometimes, but not as much as I used to. I will be able to improve on this as time goes along because I will become more motivated by seeing the end result, which usually would be better grades.