My Life Changing Learning Experience

I have truly enjoyed writing for most of my life and after this class I will continue to enjoy writing hopefully with more skill. I have always viewed myself as a fairly strong writer and this class has reaffirmed that for me, but it has also shown weaknesses in my writing. As an introduction level class this has been one of my favorites; at some point I will take a higher level, even though it is not required for my major. Even though this class is almost over I am continuing to learn. I also love that this class will help me with literally ever other class in my college career. I am not a particularly strong reader, but as my writing skills improve so do the reading skills. While in this class I have learned a lot about everything from what I can improve, to subjects that interest me, and constructing a successful paper.

I learned a lot in this class during the semester. The first project was our learning narrative, it was not what I was expecting from a writing class. I expected we would be writing a many formal essays in MLA format with lots of sources and research. The first essay being a creative writing project was unexpected. At first writing a narrative from my personal experience was difficult for me. I had not written anything besides formal essays since high school. Writing something that was creative and expressive was an adjustment. After a few days of writing I began to really enjoy my learning narrative. I liked being able to express myself and my own experiences and share them with others.

It was my first writing class as a college freshmen and I did not know what to expect, like whether or not the class would be harder compared to what I took in high school or even if I would enjoy taking class. But as soon as day one turned in into week one, than soon week fifteen I felt more comfortable in the class than what I have probably felt in the beginning. I felt like I could write anything my professor threw at me, because through writing I could express my individuality. It gives me the freedom to express myself through words, and write about things I felt passionate about writing about. I felt as though I writing because I wanted to, and less because I was assigned to do so.

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.

I feel that by taking this class it will help to not only get ready for the college that I plan to have in my future, but also my skills, no matter what, that will stay with me for the rest of my life. The effects will be not only short-term as I go through the rest of high school and eventually college, but will also follow me out for the rest of my life. Everyday we are using writing in one way or another, and the differences between good and bad writing skills are huge! This class is to prepare us for the writing portions of college and that is exactly what I am planning to take advantage of it for.

When I first decided to take the class I didn't expect much from it, except for writing tons of essays each week. My expectations were not high because I knew it was another core class I had to get through. However, my expectations were completely overturned after taking this class for a semester. Instead of writing essays each week we had free writing, a walking journal, interesting articles to read, and most importantly lots of interaction with our peers. This class was nothing what I expected and I was really surprised how it turned out to be one of my favorite classes I have taken so far. I have learned so much about improving my writing and grammar, authors, techniques in writing, and even how to cope with stress and organize my thoughts back in order. I learned all about polemic and dialectic writing as

Since I was a young girl, learning was something necessary to do in order to mature into my own self. It's something us as humans do to evolve from our younger selves. From learning to talk, walk ,and read we learn many things throughout our lifetime to be the person we are today. Learning is the key to life. Learning makes us progress. Riding a bicycle was a learning experience that I might never forget it.

It was one life-changing experience I was seven years old when I became grateful for the things that I had. I remember packing for this big trip my parents were planning for a year now. I precisely recall my mother telling me to go through my closet and pick clothes I did not use to give away, I didn't know why, but I didn't ask, I just did it. As the day got closer I remember my parents had accumulated a great amount of things to give away. I quite didn't understand why they were gathering so many things and for what reason.

It is hard to believe Foundations of Writing is already over, but as I reflect on the past semester, I realize how beneficial this class has been. Not only has my writing improved, but my confidence in my abilities to write have grown as well. I’ve become more aware of how much writing will impact my future, and after this class, I feel like I will be able to handle it. There is still room for improvement, but Foundations of Writing has pushed me to become the best writer I can possibly be.

When it came to the essays writing became a little trickier because I had to understand what it was I needed to write about and the style in which I need to write it in. There are nine essay writing methods which I learned while attending this course: exemplification, compare/contrast, cause and effect, proposal, narration, process, division/classification, definition, and argument. The only problems I encountered when trying to write the essays that were assigned to me by the instructor was finding suitable subject matter to write about. Once I found my topics for my essay, everything else became easier. I would first produce a rough draft and then the students, the instructor, and myself would go over them in class and decided if what I was writing was in its best form. Most of my rough drafts needed improvement, but if it didn’t it wouldn’t be a rough draft, so it was understood. My final drafts were very satisfying for me as well as the grades I received on them.

A life-changing event is not something to be taken lightly. Throughout our lives, we encounter many obstacles and changes, some of which bring us joy and excitement, others of which may be hard for us to handle. When I look back on my relatively short life, it may, at first, be hard for me to think of an event that has truly molded and shaped the person that I am today. I have encountered several changes, but at the time, they felt like mere speed bumps along my path. Looking back now, it is easy for me to see that these changes were not by chance, but were placed in my path to form the person that I am today.

When I first started the class I was struggling a lot. Since English is my second language, I had many stressful moments that made me think about dropping my classes. But when I thought about my future, I just kept studying even harder, waiting for my performance to improve. As a result, I felt like every time I wrote an essay, it got easier, which tells me that I’m on the right path. In addition, this class has helped me improve my grammar, taught me an important life lesson about sticking on my goal and helped me to enhance my computer skills

Participations in small in-class groups which purpose was to accomplish a task assigned to us by our Professor, were the most powerful learning experiences for me. In developing common focus, as stated in Gitterman and Germain (2008), members need to establish group rules and also remember to “build on one another’s contributions, identify and focus on salient collective themes, invite expression of differences” (p. 174), as well as welcome opinions which are contradictory or different from the majority.

Everyone has that one experience that makes them look at life with a new set of eyes. My life changing experience happened a little earlier than most. It was the summer before first grade. We had gotten an exceptional amount of rain in the past months even though it was summer. I did not notice, though, because summer was every six year old's favorite holiday, next to Christmas and their birthday. My summer was supposed to be like any other but it quickly took a turn. For the best or for the worst? That is debatable.

English class seemed to be the most dreadful to take within school. Writing essays for most of my grade in a class is not what I was looking forward too. When I entered college I knew that it would be one of many challenging classes I would have to take. Starting from the lowest English class to moving on up, the writing assignments became longer and more thought out. The time came when I got into this class that I knew more work was going to have to be put into essays and thus brought out what I had not seen before in my work progress.