Personal Narrative: My Experiences In The Writing Center

My earliest experience with reading and writing were traumatizing especially when I was in the first grade. I still recall the experience I went through to this day. It made me really hate myself because the other kids were making fun of me.

My writing experiences have been minimal. So far I have only learned the basics of writing, like forming sentences and forming sentences to put into paragraphs. I can tell that my writing has improved throughout the years. I hope to improve in writing essays, paragraphs, stories, and speeches so that I have no errors with editing and creating the final product. I predict that I will be a well rounded writer when I graduate from Newman University.

Having to write about my own literacy is hard to do, first of all it’s hard to recall things that happened when you were a child let alone when I started to read and write, I remember going to school playing, the teacher reading to us, making vowel sounds and learning to write my name; I recall the teacher giving out the spelling list and taking it home to practice before Friday’s test, I would go to school hoping and praying that I would not misspell any words; as usual I missed a couple of words and I knew what that meant.

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.

After transferring to Hope College, I realized just how much writing and music have in

The writing center at Union Institute & University exists to help writers here at Union. We work in tandem with faculty to help students improve their craft of writing. Writing center tutors can guide students, helping them become confident, powerful writers. But for us to help them, students must be curious; they have to believe they can improve, and they have to be willing to work toward that end. As instructors, we must ask ourselves what we can do to facilitate these characteristics in students.

The information I learned were basic yet so beneficial and effective to anyone and everyone. I’ve learned what to prepare for if I had owned my own center, what to spend my money on, and how to spend my money wisely. The tools taught me how to manage my money successfully and professionally. Even though it required extra work, it is worth it to me, because now I can see what the finances and budgets of a center are being spent on, and the causes and effects of certain financal situations. It taught me to be in control of the spendings and earnings of the canters, and if I want to achieve specific goals pertaining to budgets and finance, I am well aware of how to start it, and reach it. It also taught me to be aware of the comings and goings

The Advanced Writing Workshop is an incredible opportunity for me to grow as a writer and a scholar. The small seminar format of the class will give me the opportunity to more deeply explore content than would otherwise be possible in a large lecture format class. At Long Island School for the Gifted which I attended for 4th through 8th Grade, all of the classes were small. Thus, I have had the opportunity to learn in seminar-style classes previously, and found them to be very well-suited to my learning style. Although I am not a bad writer, there is always room for improvement. For example, when I read novels I intend to burst with both ideas about, as well as interpretations of, complex texts. My strength as a reader centers around my ability to grasp the big picture. Rather

Ever since I was a child, I have always had the inclination to pick up a crayon rather than a pencil. From learning how to write my ABC’s to dreading over typing eight page papers, learning how to progressively read and write has manifested into a rollercoaster within my life, emotionally, that is. But don’t get me wrong, writing has slowly inched its way into my being and will continue to stay for my journey through academia. I honestly feel that there’s some sort of creature within my mind that prevents me from deriving happiness from english-related material. Though in the midst of all the chaos, I have developed an alternate outlet to express myself. An outlet where I wouldn’t have to think about forming sentences or using words that I don’t know but use anyway. An outlet in which I find solace and truly shows who I am as a person. The outlet of art.

Unlike my last visit to the writing center, I was able to commit all of my attention this session to seeing how things unfold in most sessions without also needing to focus on my own paper. I observed a session with Meredith, who seemed to have a different approach as a grad student than the undergrad tutors I had interacted with before. Another new element of the session was the client herself; from the panel we had in class, I had come to believe that repeat clients were rare, but the tutor knew the client and the client’s work well from past sessions. In fact, the client did not come in that day to get help on a specific assignment, but had seen that Meredith had an opening during the week and chose to book it for any general help that might come up. The client seemed to be both comfortable with and grateful for the opportunity to work with a tutor who had been seeing her through an entire admittance process.

The place I chose for my essay is the Writing Center I chose this place because it sounds like interesting to me. I used this service and it helped me a lot ,and I am familiar with The Writing Center, so my personal experience with the Writing Center was good it helpful and free for all the students at Oakland University. Also, the writing Center improve your skills in writing by teaching you how to organize your essays, because writing in collages different than high school writing.

It was really fun to explore the campus and I am surprised that I have never went some places even I have been studying in UNC for two and a half years. I knew a lot of resources before I took this class, but I didn’t really use them. This time, as I doing this assignment, I found there are a lot of great resources, such as the handouts in writing center, and even I have no time to visit the writing center by myself, I can still upload my paper online and have a tutor help me with it. I went to the career center this semester couple times to finalize my resume. I also scheduled couple appointments to have the mock interview. Sometimes the career center will hold info sessions that is beneficial for me to attend as a senior. I will keep using

In the fall of 2016 I was enrolled in Susan Mills Comp. II course. During my time in this course we were tasked with several major assignments that were planned so we meet the student learning outcomes for the writing program. Some of these writing outcomes are 1.) Students use the writing process to compose with purpose, creating multimodal texts for various audiences, and 2.) Students productively interact with their peers, often in small groups, in the reiterative processes of feedback, revision, and editing. Throughout my time in this course I not only had a satisfying learning experience but enjoyed my time in Professor Mills’ course as well.

An experience that is important to me is developing my reading and writing skills. After a few semesters at Cosumnes River College, I had to take my English assessment exam during the spring of 2014 where I believed I was good enough to assess in college level English, however after I finished and saw my results it turned out I assessed in remedial English for two semesters (summer and fall 2014) before taking college level English. Upset with my results, I had to change my habits in order to get the help in need improving my reading and writing skills.

This semester has been full of learning experiences for me in many forms. I feel like I have developed both as a writer, and a tutor. In regards to writing, I think that this class has helped me become a better writer in several different ways. One way I developed regards writing personal/social narrative essays. I had always felt like I was a strong writer when writing about personal experiences, but the social narrative project challenged me in several different ways. Looking back at my social narrative reflection, I had forgotten how angry and frustrated that project made me. In the reflection I even said “I feel like this project has lost purpose for me.” Looking back, this frustration shows where some of my shortcomings were. Developing a “so-what” in that essay was very difficult for me. I was confusing the “so what” and my paper was reading more like a personal essay-rather than connecting my story to a broader community.