My Writing Struggles

Throughout my entire life – just like anyone else – English and writing papers has been present. In our society, writing papers is a necessary part of educating our youth and helping them to become smarter individuals. For me, these papers have always been a dreaded experience. As soon as a teacher starts talking about a paper that is coming up, my brain instantly starts freaking out. From one-page papers that had to be written in middle school, to a twenty minute presentation I had to give at the end of my senior year – and everything in between – my fear of writing spans over most of my life and doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

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

Author and professor of writing, Amy Joy stated “Anyone who says writing is easy isn 't doing it right” Learning what I have about the writing process over this past semester, I can now confidently say that Amy Joy is absolutely correct! Writing has never been my strong point but taking on the challenge to turn that around has been extremely rewarding. My lack of confidence in my writing skills would always come across in my assignments. It was clear that I needed guidance with grammar, sentence structure, and expanding my vocabulary. Fortunately, the coursework in English 101 along with the help and support of my professor, I have gained a much greater confidence in my ability to write quality college level papers. My writing has greatly improved taking the Introduction to College Writing course. I have learned how to integrate the words and ideas of others by quoting and paraphrasing, about expository writing, and most importantly, critical thinking.

When looking back five weeks ago, I struggled with confidence in my writing. I had much trouble expressing my thoughts on paper. Through time, I feel that I am stronger in my writing abilities and my writing skills have improved greatly. So far, I have learned to be more confident and I no longer struggle with getting started. There have been many instances where I have thought long and hard about submitting a document fearing that it was not good enough. Now, I realize that preparation is the key to great writing. When writing, many times I would write one section of the paper and immediately would start to revise before completely finishing. I soon realized that this method is a very long process and it’s

John Edgar Wideman’s “Our Time” a chapter from Brother and Keepers is a very interesting essay explaining the hardships of living in a place like Homeland back in the 50’s. Wideman tells his story through his mother, his brother Robby, and himself bringing up throughout the story the troubles he faces as a writer. Wideman faces the issue of keeping out his own bias as he listens to the stories of his family. Wideman life turned out better than was most likely expected during that time, so it was very hard for Wideman to hear and interpret his family’s stories for truly what they meant. Wideman raises these issues within the

My entire life, reading and writing have always been my weaknesses. Coming from a Hispanic household, the way things are said and written does not usually translate the same way to English. As much as I have always tried to push myself and keep improving, I feel like I have reached a point where I need a small push and guidance to take my writing to the next level. From my high school, I learned a lot of writing technics and have some small grammar lectures every now and then. Writing my research papers, preparing speeches, and all the college essays have given me lots of practice with different writing styles and methods. Yet, I still have not found one that I feel the most confident in. This semester, I truly wish to improve the transitions

An essay is a great way to express your knowledge in a topic and also learn new skills involving reading and writing. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses when it comes to writing. To turn those weaknesses into strengths, I have practiced my writing and took the advice given by my peers and professor. Throughout this course, I have overcome many of my writing weaknesses such as citations, thesis statements, and transitions. Although there are still skills to improve upon, I have improved these skills by taking my time with each essay, proofreading them thoroughly, and reflecting on my work when finished.

I haven’t had to write a lot of papers in my life besides the occasional assignments in middle school and high school. Back in middle school it was mainly trying to get your handwriting down, creating rough drafts and then finalizing them in Microsoft Word. I had a few papers to write in high school but we were given multiple days to research and brainstorm what we wanted to talk about. This is really the first class I have taken that is dedicated to writing formal essays in a specified format with topics that are a little more challenging than what I have experienced in the

What I want to know sixteen weeks from now (That I do not know now)

Briar and his men stayed at the inn adjoining the tavern that night with the intent to continue their trip the following morning.

The writing process has a few challenging aspects for me. I have a tough time placing my thoughts down on paper clearly and precisely. I struggle with finding the right sentence structure and using appropriate word choice. While I'm writing, I

This class has increased my knowledge on the aspect of college English, introducing key-points college professors expect. I have learned more grammatical key-points, improved my writing skills, learned how to peer review someone else’s paper and give good feedback, and to properly write an argumentative paper. Those key points will stick with me to enhance my success rate as I further my education in English.

While reading over the prompt for this writing assignment, before I actually even sat down and gave it good thought, I had an epiphany! My favorite quote seemed to fit into my life a little bit more- through my English! A wises man known as Joel Osteen once said, “You can change your world by changing your words.. Remember, death and life are all power of the tongue.” Meanwhile giving thought into “who I am as a writer,” something finally dawned onto me. I often find it difficult to express myself or to even find the right words to begin to. I try my hardest to put interest into all of my writing, for I feel as if that is when I do my best work. But, overall, I truthfully find writing very strenuous. What intrigues me is that I was not always this way. During my sixth grade year I found a love for writing poetry, (I will forever thank Mrs. Shaffer for the simple “Simile Poem” assignment). Somewhere between the summer before seventh grade, and mid year I had lost interest. May it be due to the exhausting poetry unit we endeavored that year, or just simply I developed this so called “writers block,” I have yet to find out.

Writing used to be a challenge to me. Trying to juggle the many nuances of writing such as ideas, organization, diction, and style was always a difficult process and finding a method of effectively handling this issue was a blessing to me as a writer. Writing became a formulaic thing to me. Whenever I was assigned an essay, ideas flow through my mind and I already begin to formulate what I want to do and how I want to organize those ideas. Being able to apply that formulaic mindset of intro, thesis with 3 main ideas, 3 body paragraphs filled with evidence and details to support the aforementioned main ideas, and a conclusion always seemed to give me a solid guideline. From there I would simply fill in the blanks with my information and as a result, the skeleton of my paper was made. My experience in an AP English Literature class during my senior year helped me write more effectively, find the perfect setup for different types of papers, and overall solidify my strength as a writer. Over the course of that class I learned how to be concise and direct with my words, organize the ideas of my paper to flow smoothly, and how to adapt to different styles of writing whether it be personal, academic, or a blend of both.

American author Og Mandino once said " Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough." I have dealt with so much failure over my life span that I have finally learned to not let it overtake my determination. Learning about myself as a reader and writer has helped me become a better student, learn effective strategies for reading and writing, and ponder my future goals.