Progressions and Regressions Throughout each semester, there are constant progressions through-out a student’s classwork along with a change in their confidence levels. As an incoming student into AP language arts my confidence level was very high, because I really enjoy writing and the general idealism of language arts.With that, my confidence level has varied throughout the course of the semester. What I mean by that is, the course is slightly more challenging than I originally imagined it to be. To follow with the challenges, the gains have equalled it out with the fact that I have occurred more skills and have progressed as a writer from the beginning of the class. As a whole, the class has not been overly easy and it has had it’s moments of being fairly difficult for me. My satisfaction level of this course and the experience of it at this point is pretty high and I’ve found the challenge very satisfying in the sense of the new language choices I have since developed and the knowledge I have gained. In going from a basic language arts class to a college language arts class it’s a whole new perspective. In deciding to take this course I’ve had many positive as well as negative things I have noticed in my writing. The very first essay we had I scored fairly average for it being the first essay of the class. It had lacked many elements such as essay content, word choice, as well as grammar and mechanics. An example from that essay would be ”Which holds the reader at
English class has never been my strong suite. I always had to work twice as hard in English then I did in any other class. Writing paper always had me stressed and overwhelmed, I felt discouraged in my work. l never seemed to be able to get to the level I wanted to. I would try my hardest and paid attention in class, but when it came to writing the paper none of that seemed to help. I think that my experience in English Composition 1 has helped gain and grow in some areas, but I don’t think that it highlights a well-written college essay. Some elements that I worked to improving was introduction paragraphs, tone, style, and thesis statements.
Many people may feel as if College composition is a writing intensive that is not necessary for them to take whether if they are not majoring in English or whether if they just simply feel that they shouldn't due to a score in which they may have received from a standardized exam from perhaps an AP English course during the time that he or she were enrolled in high school. However, It is very critical to continue to improve your language skills. It is necessary, not only to have the ability to write, but to also be able to read between the lines. Whereas high school English courses may teach you about symbolism and proper grammar, as well as sentence structure, college composition teaches you to
In this article, “College Success” written by Bruce Beiderwell, Linda Tse, Thomas J. Lochhaas, and Nicholas B. deKanter, they explain the differences of high school and college writing, expectations of the instructors, and the types of papers that are assigned. Most students who struggle in their writing are usually still going through their transformation into college, without even knowing it. Though, how can you see these symptoms? “Students who struggle with writing in college often conclude that their high school teachers were too easy or that their college instructors are too hard” (Beiderwell, P. 1). When going into college there are all sort of ways of writing an essay, in high school you were taught the five paragraph basic
Before this course, my writing exceeded above an average level, but now my writing has developed a sophisticated technique. This course pushed me to include higher comprehensive words into every piece I wrote. Continuously, I would be searching the internet for synonyms of verbs, adjectives, and nouns I wanted to include in my writings. This technique forced a maturity to emerge into my writing. As a writer, my options and understanding of diverse types of writing has improved immensely. This course allowed me to discover what forms of writing I write best, and what difficulty each type brings. My writing is strong with formal pieces, like the Prairie Meadows Scholarship Essay; pieces where I am allowed to use figurative language and make
From an early age I have been passionate about reading. Like seriously, when I was five years old I was upset that I didn’t get the newest Little Mermaid book for Christmas. However, I have never had an interest in writing. Unfortunately, as I plan to go to graduate school to obtain my Ph.D, I really cannot avoid it. Over the years, my lack of enthusiasm about writing has caused me to view most English classes as a chore, something I needed to do in order to advance to what I really wanted to do with my life. With the risk of sounding like a suck-up, this is one of the first English classes I have valued because I have felt like I improved some aspect of my writing in each essay.
Over the course of this semester, my confidence in writing has improved greatly. In high school, I didn’t really know how to write effectively. I wasn’t really sure what was considered to be “good writing” until I took AP* English. However, even while I was taking this “Advanced Placement” class, I was still trying to figure out how to really create “good writing”. I feel as if this had something to do with the fact that I never really had to work with the rules of grammar intensively. After taking this course, however, I now have a much better understanding of how to correctly use proper grammar. I also improved on using transitional phrases in my writing. I have implemented my understanding of proper grammar and transitional phrases in both my writing inside and outside of this class as a result.
Attitude: After reading chapters 1-4 in my textbook my attitude toward completing this course is optimistic. Writing has always been one of my weaker skills and I am hoping to improve my skills drastically after completing this course. I know the improvement will only come after lots of practice. Just as the common phrase says, practice makes perfect! Being required to take this course will only improve my skills. I feel like I already have a great base to build off of and completing all the course objectives will for sure sky rockets my skills.
Throwing back my three years in high school, my writing skill was bad. In English class, when I was a Sophomore, my English teacher used to call me into her office. She told that my essay was full of bad grammars and too vague. As a result, she gave the lowest score in the class. Also even when we wrote the college application, most English teachers told my essays were too vague. Fortunately, after a few revise, it was getting better
As a high school student taking on a college course, I acknowledged and accepted the challenge that lay ahead of me. The main reason I selected Composition I and II was that it allowed me to vastly improve my overall writing skills. Developing my techniques will benefit me when I am required to compose any writing assignments for my future college classes. Therefore, with that goal in mind, I chose to take this class while still attending high school. I began this class as an average writer; additionally, I did not know the majority of the writing rules or how to make an essay meet its potential. Over the course of these two classes, I believe that I have proven my writing to be more seamless and interesting to read.
Chapter 2 of Successful College Writing written by Kathleen McWhorter focused on several different points. However, the main core of the chapter is mostly focused* on college writing and what is expected of it. It mentions* how college introduces you to new forms of writing, and also using sources to support your information and arguments in your essays. This chapter not only mentions the new writing styles you will experience, but also how to be successful in them by giving you helpful tips and aiding you in figuring out your learning style.
I never wrote an essay in English before, as is notable in the diagnostic essay I wrote at the beginning of the class with many global and local errors. When Ms. Beth return the first essay and I read it again after 14 weeks or so, I could not believe how bad my writing was. I was able to see some of my errors right away. I have to accept that it is not easy to write correct in English because English is not my native language, but I know that my writing skills would improve if I keep practicing my writing and reading more English books. I learned many things in this class.
I am a science major and I have always minimized English Language courses because I thought I was already very good at writing. I did not think I would ever really need to use what I would acquire from such a course. When I came to Montgomery College and I was going to take the course English 101, my expectations were that I would have no difficulty scoring good grades in the course and I would learn nothing really helpful from it. This is because in high school, I put very little effort into my English class, but I had impressive scores in writing. I began to understand that I am not as good as I thought I was at writing when I started taking english courses in college. During my previous English course, English 102, I was able to improve certain aspects of my writing which I am glad for. For instance I am confident that my essay structures are well built. But some things in writing remained a challenge for me. I am glad that I am taking an English course that would permit me to work on things I thought I was already good at like awareness in writing essays and proper use of grammar and punctuation
My experience with English has changed drastically from middle school to college. Being in middle school I have really had to do much of a big paper, but as I progressed through college I’ve realized there much more that has to be added. I had always wondered why middle school was so easy but as years went on, I realized that advancing to college there’s a lot more requirements and importance to writing. In middle school, I was young and just starting to really realize what an essay was and after high school I really understood what an essay consists of. No matter how
“Welcome Class to Composition one.” Those words were voiced by my professor, Mrs. Robinson, on the first day of school. Initially, I thought to myself, do I even belong in this college course class. Before school had even begun, the stress over the summer about my English skills was eating me alive. Why? Well, in my past English classes I received A’s on all of my essays, but this college class did not seem so easy. Also, I was always fascinated by all the arts and sciences, but English never struck interest in me. I never thought that I could write any decent essays. The reason I insecure about my writing skills was because of the ACT. Since the ACT is the talk about how smart an individual is, my ACT score was not very high. As the course continued, the first essay approached quickly. I remember being stressed about this essay because of my writing insecurities. Although I managed to acquire a decent grade, I promised myself to strive to make myself a better writer. I started to read Norton Field Guide to Writing handbook also known as the yellow book, and slowly but surely started to develop knowledge of good writing skills and tips to improve my essays. This allowed me to grow as a writer and slowly my insecurities started to dwindle, and I began to gain confidence in myself. I never would've thought that the next time I took the ACT that my English score would be my highest. When getting my score back and realizing that I had improved so much, I began to wonder how I
In the past years that I’ve been in high school English have been different each year because my level of english changed. I use to be really bad at English class and thought I would never improve but this changed in ninth grade when I was placed in Accelerated English class because I had joined the Avid program. This made me nervous because I thought I would fail Accelerated English quickly but as I was doing work in that class, I found it quite easy and passed it with an A. This made me feel proud because it felt like I had improved but later I became nervous for starting Sophomore year at Borah. The counselor had put me yet again in Accelerated English class, which I thought it would be harder than ninth grade. When I begin doing the work in that class, some things were hard but later on I found it easy and passed it with an A as well. Once it was time to apply for Junior year classes, knowing that they didn't have an Accelerated English class in Junior year and my scores from the last two years of English class inspired