My favorite subject throughout my years of school has always been English; I found it to be where I put most of my effort and creativity in my writing. I didn’t want to overthink the writing skills I had already because I was told college writing was a “different ball game”, so I entered the beginning of my English101 course expecting the unexpected. I made sure to keep the goals I wanted to achieve this semester always in mind; learn new writing techniques, strengthen my sentence mechanic/grammar skills, become a flexible writer, and to enhance my critical thinking skills. Throughout this semester I witness my growth as a student and my eager and dedication to improving my skills in this course.
I tested out different approaches that benefited me the most when it came to my writing. In the beginning, I avoided creating an outline for my essay because I viewed it as being extra work; but as my professor taught me the correct way of drafting an outline and the details to include, I found myself relying on the outline while composing my essay. I was able to keep track of important details to include and create a fluent transition all throughout my essay. One habit that I always kept when generating my ideas was to write down any thought I had randomly containing to my essay; doing this kept all my ideas fresh in my mind. After completing my first two essays I realized what my writing weaknesses were I knew I needed assistance. I took advantage of my college Writing Center and got help for my final essays, taking this approach improved the quality of my essays and taught me new ways to avoid my common writing mistakes.
Looking back at final essay grades and my professor comments, my writing skills have advanced throughout this semester. My biggest strength was my ability to use supporting details to verify my thesis and integrating the information fluently, “your overall coherence – transitions, emphasis, and introduction of the outside sources is great” my professor comment on Essay 3. Conducting a conclusion is also a strength I’ve advanced in my writing, summarizing the main idea of my essay and using appeals to create a strong finish. I noticed that my weakness is my sentence mechanics and grammar; in the
When I first entered english composition 1101, I expected this course to be manageable. As an outstanding english student at Clarke Central high school, I believed that I had enough knowledge to excel in this course with no challenges. Dr. Catherine Rogers was able to knock me off of my high horse and make me realize that I has a lot more to learn about reading and writing. She is very comprehensive and analytical, which caused her to give me a c average on my midterm assignments. I put the blame on myself because I believe that I should have been more open to Dr. Rogers’ methods with pre-writing and revision. Now I think highly of reading and writing.
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.
The challenging component this semester was the transition from high school English reading and writing level to college level. It is mainly because High school writing did not have many expectations from students, its main focus was on the ideal five-paragraph essays. As compared to college, writing is mainly geared and focused on one’s ability to thoroughly answer the assigned prompt. Initially, I was not sure if I was capable of handling a fast-paced course, however, I quickly adjusted to the change and I am glad that I chose to stay. In English 10, I have learned many valuable elements that I can incorporate into my everyday writing. I have included my writing from project 2 a rhetorical analysis on, “Black Lives Matter”, which effectively demonstrates my growth as a reader, thinker, and writer.
As the semester comes to a close, it is always interesting to look back and reflect on the events and opportunities my English class has given me throughout my first semester as a whole. At the beginning of this semester it was evident that I was feeling uncomfortable due to the adjustment that I was going through as a student moving to college. It was very difficult expressing myself through my writing since I was nervous about good impressions and my good grade. While this class was one of the most difficult courses that I have taken this far, it has become quite evident to me that I have grown a substantial amount as a writer and as a person; Especially, when it came to explaining my ideas, writing academic essays, and making arguments.
After analyzing many of my written works, I highlighted my writing weaknesses along with notable strengths. Evident in my earlier works, my vocabulary was more basic and was not as powerful unlike my more recent essays. Seeking to improve, I started utilizing words I learned during the year
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.
When I started my first semester of college, I was very worried about writing essays and research papers. I felt like my writing skills lacked greatly compared to other students. I knew a few things of which I could improve on right off the bat, such as my vocabulary skills and organizational skills. To say the least I was very nervous about how my writing composition course would be like and did not think it would go very well for me. However, I learned so many techniques that have helped my writing skills grow. It all started with learning how to stay organized, planning what to write in your essay in outline form and sticking to it really helped when writing essays. These techniques helped me become more confident in my essays and allowed writing essays to become a lot easier. The few aspects in which I am strong in while writing essays is my ability to stay organized, focused and be very clear about what I am writing. Nonetheless, there is always room for improvement; a few things that I can think of being grammar and punctuation due to no revising, embedding quotes smoothly, and citing sources correctly.
One of my biggest challenges was accepting the fact that I had numerous habits that I developed in high school which were restricting my creativity. After reading Revising Attitudes by Brock Dethier, I now know that your first draft isn’t meant to be perfect. While writing drafts you need to let it go and not try to perfect anything. A rough draft is called rough for a reason. As a perfectionist, it was hard for me to comprehend the fact that I need to let go. I quickly found out that this would end up being one of my biggest weaknesses. I became frustrated with myself since I couldn’t figure out ways to revise my essay that had obvious problems. I was able to learn from my mistakes from the last assignment and avoid them. I now know to start narrowing your topic down when brainstorming your topic. Then you would continue to be more specific as you do your initial research. This helped me be crystal clear with what I wanted to write about and in the end helped me figure out which claims
The beginning of my junior year seems like it was such a long time ago. This may be because of how much I have grown since the start of the year. When I began AP English, my writing skills needed improvement. For instance, I often used incorrect grammar and struggled with staying on topic. In just one semester, my writing has improved immensely. The more than I write, the more I learn about how to craft a good paper. I have worked on improving my grammar, using rhetoric, addressing my subject, and many more elements of writing. In addition to improving my writing, I have gained many skills to become a better student. I have learned about effective study techniques and time-management skills that allow me to be the most successful. Since I always try my best, I know that over time I will continue to grow in my studies. This year I have gained countless skills that will help me succeed in English in the future.
As the Fall 2017 term comes to end, I look back on what I have accomplished in this class. English 102 – Composition II was one of the most challenging and toughest class I have taken at UW-Stout, but feel as though it has helped me to improve my writing skills. Even before the semester started the feeling of anxiety had taken over, as writing has never been my strongest skill, but stayed positive and confident I would be successful. Much to my surprise, my instructor, Michael Critchfield quickly addressed that this class would not be easy and amazingly changed my views of writing throughout the entire semester.
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 this semester in English 107, I have progressed more as a writer. Before I went to University of Arizona, my writing was rigid. I wrote five-paragraph TOEFL style essay all the time in my high school life. After I attended in English 107, I was not confident about my writing skill. Throughout these three projects we have done, I become more and more confident about my writing skill than before. The Student Learning Outcomes also helped me to grow as a writer a lot. In these goals, I did well on several of them, but I still need to work on the other goals.
Throughout this semester in English 101, I have made a significant improvement on multiple things, including how to be an exceptional writer and thinker. English has always been one of my most favored subjects to study because to me it instructs students how to be intelligent, how to become a more creative and critical thinker, and be able to develop ethical values and imagination. You can express yourself more efficiently in English than you can in any other subject. This class has truly made me a more confident writer and helped me express myself in different ways through the different types of papers I wrote. By writing different types of papers I have improved multiple areas of my writing. I have grown as a student in diverse areas such
Throughout the semester, I have gained skills necessary for understanding and utilizing logic while writing. I am now aware that for any writing to be scholarly, it must possess an introductory section, a body and a conclusion section. Further, I am now able to understand as well as utilize most of the basic techniques useful in pre-writing, revision and editing. Through writing the “downloading from torrents” paper, I acquired skills in word processing, sentence elements, and punctuation. Further, I developed some special skills in writing a website analysis which is a critical aspect in contemporary learning as argued by Flateby (p 182). As the semester folds, I believe that I have gained the prerequisite skills in writing and critical thinking. However, I need to improve much on some of the common problems in writing that seems to disturb me especially grammar.
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