My Reflection Writing

Over the course of the semester, my writing has definitely grown in confidence. Last year my writing seemed full of too many ideas. I was trying to throw in every piece of information I knew about the paper I was writing about. I struggled to get the correct voice out that fit with the information I was trying to present. I feel that the pressure from my Ways of Knowing class to get the perfect thesis, made me struggle through the entire paper to have the perfect evidence, while incorporating fluid sentences. Since then, I feel as though I can take a breath. I can let the words flow from my mind to paper without the cringing of trying to force a perfect paper.

I have been a student at The University of Texas at San Antonio for only a semester, but over the course of my stay I have learned and grown more than I ever thought I could. This writing course has taught me much more than just grammar and writing a bunch of essays. I have learned to express myself, how to think about topics by myself, and how to research innovative ideas I don’t know. As a biology major I’ve always loved math and science, but throughout the semester I have learned the importance of literature and language in everything we do. This course will later help me in my career and throughout life. Throughout this semester of writing composition, I have excelled at writing thesis statements, choosing my own essay topic and constructing background paragraphs, but I struggled with grammar, citations, and paragraph structure.

In English 101 there are several aspects of writing that I did not get to explore while attending my high school. I appreciate that this class gave us freedom to write our stories without harsh guidelines that twisted our creativity. In the beginning half of the semester I wrote a narrative essay about a night in high school that I will never forget and a profile essay that included an interview about my advisor’s advice for freshman engineering students. The second half of the semester, I wrote an analysis essay about a politically incorrect advertisment and an essay exploring a current issue in the world. The broad topics, themes, and formats of each essay provide students like myself a stronger foundation in writing essays. I

Writing is difficult. It is difficult to begin, difficult to stop and difficult to plan. However, it is surprisingly satisfying to create something that is entirely your own, made from your mind and a topic. Or at least this how I, as a eighteen year old college student, perceive the act of writing. I don’t write all that much outside of class or for a specific task, but when I do write something, I must force myself to start but after that it’s hard to find a good place to stop. The way I write is constantly evolving as I find new ways to express myself and reading articles informing me the best way to make a cohesive essay. As such,

This semester I wrote three essays; a review essay, annotated bibliography, and a research paper. As I wrote these essays I learned what they were, why they are written, and why people use these to obtain information. Throughout this course I enjoyed writing the essays and learning new things from what I was writing about. Although some were not easy I still took my time and made sure they were perfect in my eyes. While taking this class I learned a new perspective of writing these specific papers that I did not previously learn in high school.

Writing has become an intrigue part of education as students are routinely asked to demonstrate their knowledge through writing. Students will utilize their ability to write effectively throughout their school years and on into their careers. At the close of this semester, I now understand the terminology “writing across the curriculum”, and how I can implement it in my own classroom.

For many students, writing an essay is not their strong suit, and I was one such student until this year. In middle and high school, I dreaded writing essays mainly because I despised how we were forced to follow a strict format to develop our ideas. The universal structure that I was taught included an introduction, 3 to 5 body paragraphs, and a conclusion paragraph. Even within each paragraph, we had to adhere to follow a strict outline. The introductory paragraph had to be written with an attention getter as the first sentence, followed by introductory details on the topic and a thesis that outlined the subject of each body paragraph. Body paragraphs had to start with a topic sentence that described the focus of the paragraph while connecting it back to the thesis. After the topic sentence, claims and supports should follow. The conclusion should restate the thesis without copying it verbatim from the thesis; in addition, as you restate the thesis, you should include some of the details discussed in the body paragraphs. Finally, you end the conclusion by connecting the focus of the paper to something greater.

Writing is essential in the everyday human life and everyone is different when it comes down to writing. I enjoy writing personally I like writing about things I love doing such as playing soccer and gaming. When I find the right words to write to express something I feel like a genius. Writing has never been my forte. I have not written many essays in the past but I continued writing so I can learn from my mistakes and become a better writer. The hardest thing for me is to write about something that I am unfamiliar with, that causes me to procrastinate. In this paper I will be writing about my writing process with my three past essays individually. Writing has shaped me into a more intellectual individual and I would encourage anyone to always improve their writing skills.

My entire highschool career English was taught incredibly different from how public schools teach the subject. Most of the time our classes would include group projects, powerpoints, and reading in and out of class. Throughout the four years we rarely ever worked on writing and how to properly formulate a paper. There was no instruction on how to draft or how often we are to revise our papers. I didn’t learn how to write argumentative, persuasive, or informative essays. We also were never taught how to properly cite sources, include quotations, and the difference between MLA and APA. College was a shock to me, my first ever college paper was APA and I had no clue what APA format even was. It was so intimidating that I dropped the course. Through the classes I have taken at COC I had a general idea of how to write but nothing near what I have learned in this class. Coming into this course my skills were dull and I was eager to learn. I have always really enjoyed writing, and one day I want to write a book. Throughout this semester I feel as if I’ve really grown in my writing skills. After two years at COC I finally feel prepared enough to move on to receive my bachelors.

In my pre-course reflection, I stated that I wanted to work on strengthening my knowledge of convention, however, moving forward my mindset started to change and I quickly realized that I didn’t have as good of an understanding of the WPAs as I thought and I needed much more practice.

The four writing prompts over the course of the 2017 fall semester, have brought out different strengths in my writing. In the past, my English teachers gave similar prompts and I began to feel comfortable in those forms of writing. This semester has challenged what I always knew and made me work harder to produce a finished copy. In each project there was a different target audience and also a different tone and voice needed to successfully complete each assignment. I have developed deeper skills in critical thinking and revision skills as well as became a more direct writer.

Writing this piece was a process. I first scoured news sites like the New York Times and The Atlantic to find articles that piqued my interest. From there I analyzed whether or not I was a member of the discourse community of the article, and if the topic was something I wanted to work with. After choosing my article, I read it multiple times to get a strong grip on the argument and the rhetorical devices the author used. After I picked the device I wanted to focus on, I collected examples from the article and analyzed how this made the audience feel and how this elevated the author’s argument. Writing an outline like this expedited the writing process for me because my ideas were organized and I had a clear plan of how I wanted my paper to look. It was difficult editing my paper because I originally used two rhetorical devices and I had to relate logos in a different way, in order to follow the requirement of using one device. The re-wording and formatting of logos, the device I did not want to focus on, was a challenge but I think I was able to incorporate it in a way that did not hinder my development of pathos.

When I was in gradeschool, I was always fascinated by reading and writing. I always watched by mom write things down in for grocery lists, to do lists, and simply signing a permission slip for my brothers. I always wondered how one person could contain all of that information in their heads, for knowing how to spell thousands of words.

Before I entered this class my writing abilities were average, but I knew that with further learning and practice I could develop the skills to become a better writer. During the GSW 1110 class I have learned various new skills through four essays. Some of the new skills that I gained throughout this class are: how to locate both textual and visual sources, write effectively to audiences with opposing viewpoints, write to a variety of academic audiences, practice the process for drafting texts, demonstrate the control over grammar and mechanics, and critical thinking. The skill set that I have obtained in GSW 1110 clearly represents how I have grown as a writer and am prepared me for future classes and a future career.

Ever since I was younger I loved writing and reading. I would write short stories when I was younger, and you could always find me with a book in my hand. But as I was growing up that love faded because I soon found grammar and spelling hard to get correct. Also, when I would read out loud some words I could not pronounce so there were times when my peers would make fun of me. These experiences have turned me away from writing and reading, but I believe that this class had helped me get some of that love back. This class made me like reading and writing again because it has helped me improve my grammar, thought process, and critical thinking.