On the first day of English class, I aspired that I was going to be a great writer. As Loren Eiseley says in her poem, “The Snout” “It began with a strangled gasping for air” (Eiseley). College English came at an unbelievable speed. The material I learned from high school didn’t match up to the information I was about to encounter. To me the class felt like a dream that I have to pass to move on into a better place. But, ever since the class, I have acquired knowledge and developed many new skills in English like how to transform my mediocre essay, into a proper use of accurate punctuations, great transitions and detailed paragraphs. Even before the first day of class, I was thinking of the night before, the late night thinking about learning new material and being picked on by the teacher about not know certain information. As Loren Eiseley says “It was a place of low life. In it the human brain began” (Eiseley). To me, English was a place of sadness and anxiety attacks. But the first day of English was amazing. I learned more about the teacher and that I am not alone when it comes to not know how to do certain things. At the beginning of the semester I barely knew what a transition was or how to use it. After the long, but helpful presentations, I learned more about transitions that I never knew existed. I learned where they aren’t and supposed to be in an essay. While, the hardest concept in English for me was the commas. The Commas for me is still a struggle. But
This English class was the best English class I have ever had. There were no tests, vocabulary quizzes, or in class essays, which made the class less stressful. Before this English class, I was afraid that I would not enjoy writing many essays or writing so many words in one paper. Afterwards, essays have become something that is not so much my favorite task in the world, but it has become more enjoyable to an extent. Professor Sullivan’s class has taught me to formally write a research paper, to analyze a book through responding to different quotes from the story or novel, to understand magical realism, and to understand my own passion for school and how much effort I will be willing to put out in years to come.
The toilsome component this semester was transitioning from being a high school level writer to a college-level writer. However, English 10 has by far been my best experience in writing. By taking this course I have retrieved many helpful elements, that will help me become a successful writer throughout college. In high school, essays often gave me stress and anxiety, however, when taking English 10, I was able to learn to enjoy the process of writing purposefully and mindfully. Even though, I have taken advanced placement English courses in high school and have taken a practice run of college level English over the summer with Professor Brenda Venezia, I was still able to retrieve a lot more from this course. To showcase my progress in
As a University of Tampa freshman, I would have never guessed how much progress I could have made as a writer in class FYW 100, taught by Professor Birnbaum. Coming out of high school from one of the most prestigious, well-known schools in the nation, gave me an ambiguous amount of certainty to receiving an A in her class. Before beginning my journey in college, Jesuit, which was a college preparatory high school, gave mandatory four-year English courses to every student. With that being said, there was no doubt of me coming into freshman year of college with high confidence in my English skills.
With the anxiety flowing throughout my body, I knew the time was near of facing my English 1301 class. Being told that I needed to improve my writing during my grade school days, I knew that I didn’t feel at ease going into a college level English class. But, with this in mind I had to pull myself together to encounter the challenges that I will face. However, having the privilege of having an amazing professor I believe my writing skills improved, also I was able to find my confidence.
Coming into the end of my senior year, I was petrified. As I skulked into my classroom, I took a momentary glance around, trying to get a quick view of the people I would struggle with. After all I went through in high school; this is how I began to see my English class, a journey. I took my seat, across from a guy I knew from grade school. I knew I greatly improve at the subject, and everyone else
At 11:15 on Monday, August 17, 2015, my first official college class, English 1101, began. In general, I had no idea what college classes would be like let alone how college English would be. Even though this class taught me a great deal in one semester, it took a large amount of time and effort to make the adjustment from high school. The simplistic writing style of high school was put to rest the moment the first college English class began. As a result, I learned quickly that college writing is complex and less systematic than high school writing. Five paragraph essays with three strict body paragraphs were no longer the norm for writing. Even though my professor helped guide my writing, I was no longer coddled through the whole writing
As the semester comes to an end this assignment gives me a great opportunity to look back on my experiences in English 111. Through my experience in English 111 recognizing several ideas that have greatly impacted me, my point of view on learning, and my actual learning. My experience in college has been beneficial because my professor approached teaching with a more aware effort and taught me how to approach learning and my role as a learner in a way. It is tough to put into words how much I have grown as a writer.
Though I have spent many years learning English, it is an ongoing process that requires a lot of hard work. I was very glad to find out that the first four weeks of the course would be focused on grammatical rules and sentence patterns. Because I never focused on the structure of my sentences, I believe I wrote dull and flat texts. Moreover, my punctuation was terrible since I had no understanding of English punctuation. But the lessons on the sentence structure turned my world upside down: It was hard to believe that even simple sentences have such a great variety and can turn your paper into something very interesting in the terms of structure. Practicing skill of building effective sentences in the same essay was very helpful, for it allowed to focus purely on the sentence and structure patterns rather than on the context. My writing improved since the beginning of the semester and I became a more confident
Expressing myself through writing has always exhilarated my mind. Throughout grade school, I was continuously composing poems and short stories, not only for class assignments, but for the pure joy of doing it. However, entering a college English course terrified me. Having graduated fourteen years prior, and only flexing my writing muscles for personal journal entries and job resumes, I felt intimidated. Yet, I understood that in order to succeed in college, and my future career, I would need to absorb the knowledge of techniques, structures, and critical thinking skills presented within this course.
While these skills will help me in future English classes, they will also aid the making of any paper I prepare for my time at Old Dominion. Not only have you taught numerous tactics to better my writing as a whole, but you have also taught lessons I can take with me throughout life. With the help of persistent due dates, whether they are large formal papers, or just simple discussion boards, I was able to grow as a person due to the increase of responsibility this course required. Finally, the most valuable thing I will take away from this class is the inner-confidence I’ve gained from creating cohesive pieces of
A pivotal moment in my development as a writer is Azusa Pacific University’s English class. College English class is building
A bright but cold morning, January 2014, I woke up early, jumped out of bed and smiled because it was my first day of school. First I went to take a shower; I thought, “What would I do in school today, who will be my teachers”? I walked to the bus stop, people looked at me like I'm alien with five heads and with a large nose. I sat down on a tree trunk waiting for the bus and the bus arrived after 15 minutes, I aboard the bus. The driver was a woman she was wearing a black shirt and brown pants. She told me “ Do you have the paper that shows that you have permission to go to school in a school bus” I stared at her and said “ No English”. A good girl seating behind the bus driver translated into Spanish what the bus driver asked
I can remember seeing that I had to take an English class my first semester of college. I was already overwhelmed with starting college, and having to write college essays made me get even more nervous. I sat down with my mom and decided to look at the English classes available, and I finally decided that I had to take an evening class to make it work in my schedule. The first day of English came and now looking back it was not as bad as I thought. It made me a better writer and be where I am today. It may have taken me some time to get where I am today, but at least I am on the right track. English Composition helped me realize that I am my own author and have strengths that I did not realize I had.
I held my breath as I scanned the syllabus on the first day of class. Then I heard my professor say “And in week thirteen you will present your research findings in your discussion sections”. Hearing this sent me into an automatic panic. Having to speak in class felt impossible to me. My flight or fight response was activated any time I anticipated the threat of speaking in class. I was sure to drop the class at any indication that I would have to talk, either by being called on or having to give a presentation. Sometimes I convinced myself things would be different and I would be able to handle it. It never worked, the results were the same; I didn’t go to class. All of my grades were based on papers and exams. So I would submit my papers and take the tests but not go to class. My half assed approach to participating in college was to take classes as if they were an independent study. I felt immediate relief when I choose avoidance until the guilt set in from getting poor grades, wasting money and lying to everyone. The vicious cycle only fueled my anxiety, my avoidance and my academic problems.
Everyone goes through hard times in school. It can vary from reading to writing, math to science, or simply just interacting with the people that are in class. In this instance, reading and writing were not strong points for me before third grade and didn’t get much better as the year went along. The teacher that I had was a terrible teacher; she gave me absolutely no help and handed me bad grades without clear reasoning. In fact, I realized how much she hated me, but to this day, I will never know why. That year made me learn being a good student in class, participating and asking questions frequently are rude habits to have in the classroom. Since the teacher and I did not see eye to eye, this made weak points such as reading and writing