My Most Important Skills Someone Can Be Our Own Pop Culture

Students are required to take English all four years of high school to improve and develop skills for higher education. We read different types of literature to learn morals and explore new ideas. With writing assignments of résumés, formal letters, and essays, students establish a foundation for future responsibilities in college or a job field. Vocabulary expansion is woven throughout everyday tasks in the English classroom; word choice is crucial to our professional and educational futures. Accumulated writing and reading skills are used in preparation for standardized testing, such as the SAT and ACT. English class improves the confidence in students with reading, writing, and speaking skills. In four years of English, written literature greatly impacts one’s learning experience.

A freshman college level English Composition course aims to improve students' abilities with writing, critical thinking, mechanics and usage, punctuation, grammar, and vocabulary. By studying English 101 at Luzerne County Community College, I will work diligently to improve in all of these aspects. My main focus is to develop skills specifically to create clear and concise thesis statements, strong and persuasive essays with cajolement, and to develop different perspectives on narratives and other essays. These writing skills may also improve my critical thinking and reading skills.

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.

Throughout the essay, Prose argues that literatures in high schools are dumbing down the English curriculum. She says books that are “chosen for students to read are

My English Literature major has helped me to achieve an outstanding level of appreciation, enjoyment, and knowledge of both American and British Literature. As a high school AP English student, I struggled through great works like Hamlet and To the Lighthouse. My teacher’s daily lectures (there was no such thing as class discussion) taught me merely to interpret the works as critics had in the past. I did not enjoy the reading or writing process. As a freshman at Loras, I was enrolled in the Critical Writing: Poetry class. For the first time since grade school, my writing ability was praised and the sharing of my ideas was encouraged by an enthusiastic and nurturing professor. Despite the difficulty of poetry, I enjoyed reading it.

It’s hard to imagine that just ten short months ago I was sitting in a classroom building a spaghetti tower with no idea what a rhetorical analysis essay was or what the word anaphora meant. Now, just a couple of months later, I have read and analyzed six different novels, learned to write an argument, synthesis, and rhetorical analysis essay, expanded my lexicon of literary terms, and sat through a three hour AP exam. This class has not only given me the skills to master the AP exam, but it has also given me knowledge to succeed in future English courses and in life. Through this course, I have experienced unparalleled growth in my reading comprehension and writing abilities.

In preparation for the Advanced Placement Literature and Composition exam, high school students must read many kinds of literature during the year-long course to familiarize themselves with different time periods, movements, philosophies, and genres. Advanced Placement students must learn to think critically, and be ready to find, analyze, and express literary connections through written analysis. The biggest challenge of teaching and learning Advanced Placement English is the difficulty covering the entire scope of literature in two semesters. Twentieth century literature often gets neglected. The pace of the curriculum can also limit

In literary education, from childhood to maturity, individuals are taught how to write not to improve themselves as critical thinkers, but to fulfill the requirements given to them in a prompt. Whether to analyze or argue, this form of writing has led to a cease of literary improvement in students today, making many question the effectiveness of writing classes. Mike Bunns, in his article “To Read like a Writer”, explores this topic and stresses the necessity for young readers to critically examine the author’s choices in order to improve their own pieces of work. Bunns effectively argues to his audience of college students that improved comprehension comes from focusing on the rhetorical choices authors decide to make in their compositions by tying personal narratives with repetitive questioning throughout his article.

This essay originally titled Studying Literature in Grade 12, has an abundance of information regarding and convincing the readers that the grade twelve English course should be composed of Canadian literature. The grammar in this essay however, was weak. The subject did not agree to their pronouns, making many sentences awkward. Overall, improvements could have been made. Some of these include MLA format, the title, introduction paragraph, grammar, punctuation and the citation format.

Additionally, students will learn how to: “read texts critically,” analyze writing, respond in a constructive and professional manner, and “evaluate sources and integrate the ideas of others into their own writing” (Rhetorical Choices 2-3).

The most interesting aspect I discovered about my writing this semester is my ability to read, appreciate, and interpret a piece of literature and write analytically about it. In this course I’ve grown to change my reading process completely. I had a tendency to read

High School English teaches students think about, react to and solve problems they might face outside of the classroom. Including fiction in the curriculum can achieve these goals. Novels address issues in today’s society that can help students make connections between the classroom and the real world. A recurring issue in society today focuses on the rise and popularity of technology. A novel, such as Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, that shows the harmful effects of technology can help students connect the problems with technology in their own lives.

However, through my English classes, I learned how to draw inferences and explain them to people of different education levels. I particularly refined these skills last year while prepping for the AP test, in which I had to write essays which conveyed the entirety of a book and still correctly infer the symbols and motifs within a short, five paragraph essay. In particular, the four essays I wrote about The Grapes of Wrath in Mr. Dainty’s class not only prepared me for the test but also helped me improve my ability to convey the overall elements of the book while still focusing on the main themes. In college, these skills will most likely give me a head-start over my classmates as well as enable me to focus on thinking critically in all my classes, not just my English courses. Additionally, learning those skills has helped me with Independent Research where being able to explain my project to both experts in the field and the general public is essential to being a good researcher. I have been privileged enough to excel at this, which will help me profusely as I pursue a degree in psychology which requires much critical thinking. Throughout my career at Marian, my critical thinking skills have improved greatly, which are important for both succeeding in life and at the college

What really stuck out to me was the issues of ethical issues as a teacher who incorporated media into the lessons. As a future teacher, I never thought of having to have students sign consent or release forms for their work if

I majored in English in the Humanities and Social Sciences college at Rowan University. At the same time, I studied a number of courses in the discipline of secondary education. I enjoyed studying teaching but early in my undergraduate career I determined that teaching English at the high school level was not my desired life path. Rather, teaching English Literature as a professor was my life's purpose. As an undergraduate, I have taken a deluge of class varying from children's literature to Toni Morrison studies in an attempt to further understand literature. Concentrating on the ways in which modern literature apprehends the American experiences within the written word. At the point of graduation, I accomplished a