My First Writing Assignment

Like transforming from a caterpillar to a butterfly, my writing style transformed from something mediocre to something quite exceptional. In high school, even when I took advanced placement English and Literature courses, I was never good at writing. My writing would lack structure, reasoning, syntax, and a well-defined thesis statement. My inadequate grades on writing assignments lowered my self-esteem, so I assumed I would never enjoy writing papers because I believed I could never improve. However, since attending a university my writing style has improved far beyond my expectation. My EN 101 course enhanced my understanding of the different ways I could approach my writing. Also, it enhanced my comprehension of outlines to complete assignments. Investing quality time into my writing made a substantial difference because I became a stronger writer. Through the late nights, constant revisions, and agonizing head traumas, I learned that my writing is truly spectacular whenever I incorporate well-defined thesis statements, provide sufficient supporting evidence, and maintain a clear focus in my assignments.

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.

The three things I learned about are: recognizing an emergency, deciding to help, and call 911 if EMS is needed. Recognizing an emergency is very important. Four factors to notice when something is wrong are: severity, physical distance, relationship, and time exposed.

When I stop to think about the memory’s that I have made during my first semester of college; there are both good and bad pieces or times that present themselves. Often with many things there are gray areas, and writing would fall in there for me. I fortunately understand now that I have times where I can over look many of my writing flaws. Such as sentence structure! This by far was my biggest problem in this class, and I fully understand why. Personally I have times that will type up a paragraph and never notice the mistake. That is until someone points it out to me. It’s almost like my brain knows that something is wrong with it, but for some unknown reason it won’t register when I’m revising my paper. So as a writer I have realized that I need to take advantage of people around me and get their feedback on my essay’s; because

Undergraduate programs in recent years have become more and more specialized and there is a lack of diversity in the writing styles taught in writing classes. This has led to students being less prepared to enter the workplace and less qualified than the people who know the writing style of the specific job.

Coming into this class, I wasn't sure what to expect. Of course,I expected to be writing a lot but was unsure of the type of writing and the style. I was looking forward to writing challenging pieces that stretching me creatively as a writer. I wanted to explore how to express myself in my writing because it had been a long time since I'd written a creative essay. One of my main hopes for this class was challenging myself to become a better editor of my own papers. I often find it a tedious and laborious process to find and edit the grammatical errors in my papers. However, this is an important skill that I need to develop for my future as a successful writer.

My writing process is like a baby learning how to walk. During their first year, the baby is busy developing coordination and muscle strength in every part of their body. They will learn to sit, roll over, and crawl before moving on to pulling up and standing. From then on, it's a matter of gaining confidence and balance before they start walking. They will fall over and over again but likewise, they will try over and over again until they’re off and eventually running. High school for me was like a baby’s first year when it’s preparing to start walking and this quarter in EWRT 211 was when I gave the first baby steps. With more practice, I’ll be walking with ease in no time. I believe I will be successful in EWRT 1A.

This semester of writing has been truly interesting for me. Being able to write within a topic that interests me has made the process more exciting and engaging. I can see this growth in my papers this semester, but I feel that other, perhaps, cannot. It is true that the mechanics of my writing have improved and I am more able to articulate my thoughts and position. However, the real improvement, that other may not see, has been in my self-esteem and confidence in my own writing skills. I chose my sixth writing assignment as my example of progress for a variety of reasons. The two most prominent reasons are that it is one of my later assignments, and, therefore, will represent the most recent evidence of my progress and that it received my highest grade of all of my assignments.

Question #1 is worth 5 points – all others are worth 1 point each. Either type your answers directly onto THIS sheet OR create a new file and number your answers 1, 2, 3, etc.

Looking back to all the writing assignments that I completed during the course of the semester, I feel that I have gained a large amount of knowledge in a variety of different works. The Literary Response papers helped me gain insight on the culture and beliefs during the period that we were studying; and the Homework assignment papers allowed me to further research and analyze works so that I have more of an in depth knowledge about the pieces. Learning about the different cultures, has in a sense affected my views about artworks. Before I would not have given much thought to some of the artworks that I saw, but after learning about the pieces, I feel that my opinions on artwork in general has changed quite a bit.

The first day of school is nerve-wracking for most people, for me, the first day was especially terrifying. The first day of a college class is probably more crazy than all others. My mom and younger sister, Michaela, were busy taking pictures as I attempted to run out of the door. After being homeschooled for the last six years, I knew it would be a much different experience. I had been in my room alone doing school; I was content with where I was. The morning of the first day of class, I was so busy that I didn’t have time to be nervous. However, as I ran out the door, my heart rate elevated to a pace of 138 bpm. I felt older, nervous, excited, and anxious as I left for Pellissippi. Although it had been six years since I had been in a classroom, I realized that all of my worry was for nothing once I walked into Ms. Brown’s class.

All throughout my years of schooling, I’ve had just about, one paper that was about one page long, due every year. My papers never had to be more than one page in length. Therefore, I did not have to do much writing or do many essays. Surely not enough to remember any of the assignments. Writing has never been something I enjoyed doing, so I never bothered to many any memories of my writing experiences. I did not think it was necessary to remember any of them since I only had to do them to get a grade. The only writing experience I remember was the first assignment I had in this English 100 class about a writing experience. All week long, I sat there thinking about what to write about, but nothing came to mind as a topic. Then, one thing came to mind, but it was so very vague, I could not write the length that was needed for the assignment. I could only think of a few sentences to write for it. After sitting for a few moments longer, I thought, how about I write about how difficult it was for me to write this essay before it was due.

Since beginning to write papers in English class, I have had countless successes and failures. While many of my English classes have taught me how to improve my writing, I have not learned very much in others. My most recent English class was last year, my sophomore year. My class was particularly undersized; therefore, it gave each student the opportunity to have additional individual attention. Throughout the class I experienced high points, weaknesses, and even difficulties that I never overcame. Overall, my writing skills improved, but only marginally.

I believe I have achieved most of the course learning objectives as I pass this class with a c or higher. I undertook the writing process we learned in class and it has helped me become a better writer. Before I entered my freshman year of college I didn’t know how to write. But as I undertook the writing process I was taught in class I now know how to write. First when it came to writing my assignment papers for my class I grabbed a notebook and did prewriting . I brainstormed a list of ideas for my papers. I then had a plan on everything I was going to write about. I then sit down and write my first draft. I make sure my first paragraph is a strong

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.