My First Semester In Advanced Composition

While attending writing class, I learned about the 4 steps in writing, bases for revising, organizing, and connecting specific information, and I also learned about the different types of essays such as descriptive, narrative, process, cause and effect and argumentative essay. I have been a student at Milwaukee Area Technical College for 1 semester, and over the course of my enrollment I have grown and learned more that I knew prior to attending this writing course. Participating in this writing class has taught me so much more than stuff about literature and language, it has taught me another way of expressing myself. I have learned here how to write and express myself, how to think for myself, and how to find the answers to the things that I don 't know. Most importantly I have learned how important technique, outlines and organization are. My goal in this paper is to inform writers about how my writing skills have improved.

I began writing with basic vocabulary and barely any sentence variety. As the year progressed, I learned to advance my vocabulary and word choice in addition to incorporating a diversity of sentence structure. Nearing the end of the school year, I acknowledge that I have grown and learned more about writing. I anticipate that I will receive even more arduous writing assignments that require more research and time. Although it will be challenging, I feel confident that I will do well because I feel well prepared from all I’ve done this year. As I grow older, I will have to continue to write. I know I can take the knowledge I’ve learned this year and apply it to future papers for years to

In Freshman Composition I learned what metacognition means, and how it applies to academic writing. Next I learned about textual evidence and backing up your opinions with research. *I expect this class to help develop my writing skills, as well as find my voice in writing, all together I expect this class to be challenging but rewarding. Therefore I have set a few goals for myself, my first goal is to step out of my comfort zone and research topics I have never heard of before. My second goal is to not second-guess myself on my writing topics and/or choices. Furthermore I expect great things to come from this

“The Novice as Expert: Writing the Freshman Year” reflected my writing experience while I transitioned from elementary writer to a critical writer. Sommers and Saltz write, “freshmen need to see themselves as novice in a world that demands ‘something more and deeper’ from their writing than high school” (Sommers and Saltz 134). This line highlights the hardship that most students face when trying to write successfully. My earlier written works were much weaker than my current pieces because I often wrote for the sake of passing the class. While developing my writing, I focused on the new ideas that were introduced rather than limiting my argument to familiar techniques and ideas. Because of my new attitude towards writing, I began to demand

Throughout the course of freshmen year I have developed different skills and opinions on writing. I feel I have created a more mature style of writing and a better understanding of literature. I have changed my view of writing over this semester and acquired a strong liking for it. The importance of writing has become more visible throughout the past few months. Writing is crucial in many aspects of a person’s life. I have grown to be a more powerful and well built writer throughout this course.

During the course of this semester; the variety of writing styles and essays assigned to me in my communication skills class encouraged the development of my writing skills, as well as provided me with more self-assurance in my abilities. My writing, research, and presentation abilities enhanced through practice, determination, and the understanding I gained during this course. With every single writing assignment, I learned new innovative approaches and skills, which enhanced my abilities to improve my thoughts logically, enabling me to write more clearly, and to organize my papers more effectively. At the beginning of this semester; despite the fact that I already knew the terminology MAP: message, audience, purpose; I never really

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?

As a high school student taking on a college course, I acknowledged and accepted the challenge that lay ahead of me. The main reason I selected Composition I and II was that it allowed me to vastly improve my overall writing skills. Developing my techniques will benefit me when I am required to compose any writing assignments for my future college classes. Therefore, with that goal in mind, I chose to take this class while still attending high school. I began this class as an average writer; additionally, I did not know the majority of the writing rules or how to make an essay meet its potential. Over the course of these two classes, I believe that I have proven my writing to be more seamless and interesting to read.

When imagining how I would survive AP Language and Composition, I also took into consideration how I could absorb tips for strengthening my writing skills. From the start of my eleventh-grade year up to now, I believe I have begun my process of improvement. Writing is a skill that I enjoy due to the freedom of expressions one can play with. In most of my past writings over the years, I have earned high scores, and I have felt confident in my persona and how I go about expressing my writing skills. Before all the lectures and writing practices this year, though, I would simply regurgitate the prompt into my essays, and I would elaborate on that simple, broad idea. Apparently in the past I did this in an appropriate manner, for I never ran

This is the end of my 8-week course for English 112 Writing & Research in Disciplines. Over the course of the class, I have grown and learned more than I actually thought possible about writing but there is still room for improvement. I came into this course, not a strong writer it’s not really my strong point and never has been. Although this course has taught me some various methods of writing a paper. For example, the last assignment where the paper had to be written in CSE format. It was difficult at first because I used to only writing in MLA or APA format.

Throughout this semester, I have seen an improvement in my writing skills and the way I develop my essays. I have always had a passion for creative writing, but when writing academic papers, I lacked technique and correct grammar. I made exceptional grades on my writing assignments in high school, but I learned quickly that English college classes are much more challenging. Being in my first college English class helped me learn how important class attendance and participation are, along with learning the many rules and techniques used in writing. Seeing the improvement in my writing over the course of this semester has made me very optimistic of the English classes I will take in the future. This class has taught me how important grammar is and how I should always strive for improvement in my writing.

Going into Composition 1, I was quite intimidated. I do not consider myself as an advanced writer. Growing up spelling was my worst subject therefore English was always hard for me. This resulted in my lack of skills in writing. Sentence structure is also a weak point for me. Even with not having the skills to be a great writer, I do believe I have some strong points. I can read something and evaluate it. Also I have been able to do my research for a proficient research paper. When it comes to writing a paper I am exceptionally good at format. After making it through Composition 1 I have to say I have learned a great amount of information on how to be a better writer. I am now able to have more of a sentence variety in my writing and my punctuation has improved. Even after spending the last 15 weeks in my Composition class, I still have some areas I need to work on. I am the world’s worst at not re-reading my papers enough. This leads to not catching all the minor errors such as run-ons, fragments, and mechanics. Run-ons are still a major problem for me. Having a good teacher that can explain in simple terms on what I needed to improve on helped. I know feel confident when I turn in a paper and do not dread writing them.

Although my papers from this semester were similar to those I had written last semester, I have learned to incorporate more academic vocabulary in my writing. Also, before writing my critique paper, I was unaware of how poorly an article could be written due to bias, hasty generalization, false analogy, etc. I learned that professional writers even make simple mistakes in their own articles. This vocabulary is important in realizing how to choose a bad article from a good article.

Over the course of this past semester, my ability to write has improved tremendously. Prior to undertaking this course, my expertise in writing was not as fine-tuned as it should have been. I had never previously been enrolled in a class specifically tailored to writing-- which was quite clear. Upon reading my past works, it becomes apparent that my writing style consisted of fluff, small words, and inconsistently structured sentences. These problems have, for the most part, been remedied with the coursework I have tackled in College Writing. Rather than long, drawn out papers that take an eternity to reach the primary point, my recent work is much nicer in terms of composition and grammar. I credit these improvements to the three primary

Over the past few months, I have learned several different writing techniques. While all of the different types of papers were difficult to write, I believe that my writing skills have improved. In fact, I did not understand all of the assignments, but I did try to do my best on all of them. While I should have used more transitional words in between sentences and paragraphs, I feel that I learned a great deal. It is true that I have not had very much writing experience and the writing process is difficult for me. Sometimes, I do admit, it takes days to complete one assignment, but it will be worth it when I am a proficient writer.