Throughout my life, the English language has acted as something much more than a communicative tool. Because I emigrated from Germany to the US when I was almost five years old, my adoption and ongoing usage of the English tongue has connoted a change of cultural, and even personal, identity in my life. I did not know one word of English when I arrived in the US in 2004, and so, as I learned English, thus I became familiar with the new life I would live on the other side of the Atlantic. I quickly became fluent in English and entered public school after one year of preschool. I remember that, for the first hundred days of kindergarten, I did not utter one word. This was not due to a lack of English ability, but rather to my shyness and the fact that I was still acquainting myself to the norms of existence in the US. Following this, my shyness
Throughout my many years of taking English courses I have learned great things. With this, I have had great writing experiences and developed strength in writing. Though I have learned many new skills on writing, I still strive to be a better writer. In this essay, I will discuss how my education, prior writing experiences, writing strengths, and writing weaknesses factor into my choice.
A person can read and write a great deal in one day whether they realize it or not. Whether it be texting a friend or reading a textbook for a certain class, you are reading and writing constantly and a daily basis. What surprised me the most about the reading and writing that I did on Sunday was how much I am reading and writing on my phone. Whether I am texting to coordinate plans with a friend for the night or reading a random article I saw while reading a Facebook news feed, I am constantly reading and writing on my phone. I never considered it reading and writing when I used my phone, I just saw it as looking at my phone. Just staring at this four-inch screen for some sort of entertainment. What also surprised me was how much we read without noticing it. You can walk down State Street and you will be constantly reading by looking at stores, posters, or even words on a bus that is passing by. Our eyes and brains are looking at and reading words all the time.
My experience have been good but not so good. I'm not the best writer I struggle to get my ideas down.
During my past writing experience, I have struggled with formulating and initiating interesting points of discussion, grammar, and transitions. I have often sat down to work on a paper and found myself completely drawing a blank on anything interesting to write about. Whether I am given a specific prompt or general topic to discuss, I constantly struggle with finding a starting point. Once I do, I become too focused on trying to create a poetic sounding paper, rather than focusing on the main discussion points. In some ways, focusing on making my papers poetic have added detail and depth to my writing. However, this frequently distracts me from my papers main theme. One of my biggest drawbacks with writing has always been proper grammar usage.
Lacking experience in writing and reading, English is my most feared subject. It is the one and only vulnerable spot in my in my mind. I hate writing and I hated reading, other than sports pages in the newspaper or sports books. My earliest time that I started reading and writing was extremely abhorrent for me. Sometimes, you could even say that some of these experiences bothered me. It was quite hard because I wasn’t able to focus on what I need to do. I was even struggling to write my own name. The young mind that I had, it was so easy to get distracted on what I need to learn and also accomplish, especially for the future ahead of me.
I became the literate person I am today by mostly writing, I write all the time and I do a little reading. What made me love writing was the fact I found an escape, not on an emotional level, but writing is something to help ease in my opinion. My personal writing has influenced me more than the writing I was assigned in school, I continued it outside of school as a choice of my own, once I started I never stopped. My viewpoint on reading is different than my viewpoint on writing, reading is not that bad but it can get boring. What made me feel different about reading from writing, is probably the fact, reading just takes time, like when I write, I write any and everytthing however I want. But, to read a book, I have to read it a certain way
Reading and writing has always created a sense of understanding for me in my art. Reading in the literal sense is a way that we understand text or symbols in our minds which in turn create meaning. Writing also in a literal sense is our way of communicating our knowledge and emotions to others through symbols in text. The human experience for all people includes communication and through reading and writing this experience is created. From the beginning of this course, my only prior experience with reading and writing were high school level course over literature and reading. I had an average level of rhetoric,reading,writing and language overall however, understanding the significance of these subjects was never put forth in such a way until I took this course. I discovered through this course that reading is a combination of not only our “visual information” but also our “nonvisual information”. My comprehension of reading has evolved from reading
One of my most challenging experiences in writing was actually in Virginia Wesleyan College. During my last semester, I was taking Professor Ruh’s ENG 250 class called 19th Century American Women Writers, and we were required to write a few literary analytical essays on novels and short stories that were written by women during the 19th century. Even though the class was very interesting, I was having such a hard time writing my essays that I actually thought I would never be able to pass his class after I failed my first essay. I am usually the type of student that never asks for help because I would often feel intimidated by my teachers. However, I managed to speak up and ask for his help throughout the entire semester and because of that,
Literature to me has been uplifting, motivational, and therapeutic; I was hooked from my very first book. No matter what occurred in my life I always had a book or writing as an outlet. My love off reading was the catalyst for my interest in writing. Reading such beautiful novels created a need within me to learn such a craft. My first attempts on my voyage ultimately ended in cringe worthy disasters; however I do believe I have come a long way in my stride to learn all I can on literature. My writing has become much more structured and articulate, I have also seen my literary understanding expand; I do still have a few weaknesses I need to work through, such as my struggle with concentration through timed writing, as well as my less than noteworthy
1. I've never considered myself much of a writer. I'm expecting that we will be writing often in this course so, one of the goals I'm hoping achieve from English106 is to become more accustomed to writing. Once this is accomplished, it will easily allow me to make further improvements on my writing abilities. My second goal is to become an active reader. Active reading will allow me to pick up an in dept perspective and pose unique questions on the novel. My third goal is to improve on my analysis skills. I often find myself incapable to analyzing a piece of literature to a deeper level. Hopefully discussions during conferences will me to come up with a deeper analysis of passages.
Who comes to mind when defining an exceptional writer? King, Shakespeare, or perhaps Hemingway? Far away from these talented writers I find myself defining a good writer as someone with passion. Throughout the course of my writing experience I feel I’ve transitioned from being inarticulate to being open minded and finally leading me to have a goal on my fluency and creativity.
My first college writing experience consisted of several resumes and cover letters for the various work-study jobs that I applied to. Prior to that, I have constructed numerous essays where I primarily critiqued the literary works of many well-known authors. In junior year of high school, I critiqued the notable poetry of a unique author-- Wislawa Szymborska. The poetry Szymborska wrote was very intricate and rich in subliminal messages. Her poetry usually disregarded the use of rhyme, and instead focused on the sophisticated use of metaphors and allusions. In addition, I continued to evaluate other notable literary works in my senior year of high school. My English teacher instructed me to analyze the poetry of John Donne-- who focused on constructing short poems which reflected complex messages through the use of extended metaphors. I
There is a very real, very great distinction between remembering your first experiences with writing and remembering when you first considered yourself to be a writer.
During this writing practice I learned that there more to writing than what I originally thought. Compared to the past years I wrote, I learned more about myself and the skills that I am capable of. Writing with these methods also improved my writing because of the whole writing for an audience idea. My writing got better because I constantly had a specific audience in mind. This experience also encouraged me to take both roles as a reader and writer.