My Growth As A Writer
My growth as a writer has been going uphill since the very first mini paper. I came to Heartland Community College thinking, I was an okay writer. They told me when I took the placement test I wrote a college level but I didn’t see it myself. I would look at other classmates work and be kind of upset with myself for not making the same choices they did. Maybe I could have changed a word or maybe talked about a different subject and try to not go off topic so much. Well if it wasn’t a Gladwell paper because he tends to go off topic in his papers. The break up letter took me so long to do, I was so nervous because I didn’t want to sound like a high school kid and get a bad great for not pushing myself to the next level.
Distant, cold, and non-existent describes my relationship with writing. My relationship with writing has never been a close relationship. Writing has always been difficult for me. I have never hated writing, but it has been a constant challenge for me. I will be discussing my fears of writing, the value of being able to express your ideas through writing, and what excites me about writing more and more.
I have a love-hate relationship with writing. I can write well according to some of my peers; though this could just be from the fact that I seem like the quiet, studious, type who has spent most of her time with the straight "A" nerds who went on to top tier schools such as Stanford. Sometimes I am not too sure of my own writing abilities. On most essays, I get a little bit above average grades and every once in a while I get a few more points than usual. I have noticed that my writing is better when I have to write about a topic I am passionate or know a lot about. The more I have to work with the better. Otherwise, my writing seems poor, forced, and somewhat bland. It usually follows a poor or basic thesis statement and lazy paragraphs. I believe motivation helps me to write better,
In high school I was not the best at writing. I did not find this out until I was places in advanced English. I was used to writing papers that had to be simple. So when I started receiving C’s and D’s I told myself something had to change. I finally realized that I could not write as well as most of my classmates. So, what I ended up doing was making my papers more complex and making my sentences stronger. When I applied myself I became a stronger writer. As I took the diagnostic test I saw I was making a lot of mistakes. At the end I made a 70. From this I could see why I encountered the bad experiences in high school and in college.
During this spring semester, I have grown in many ways as a writer, and a student. I have started to realize, and accept the flaws that I have created in my writing. In the past, I never looked into my writings and saw my problems, and if I did, I did not accept that they were problems. In my writing pieces in the past, I was very hard-headed about what I thought was correct versus what was actually correct. I have also become More familiar with different formatting options on Microsoft Word to create a more professional piece or writing. However, figuring out all the parts of writing and making them work together is the most difficult part of writing.
Many people enjoy and have fun writing, but then again, many people dislike having to write, including me. Writing has always been something I was never really interested on for many reasons.
Writing is a key in everyday life, whether it is going unrecognized or not communication is largely dependent on writing rater then face to face relations. Growing up writing an essay or a story wasn’t always as important as sending that one text out to a friend. Many times instead of working on an assignment people tend to text, and write on social media instead. Although by doing this in the end, you are still writing, although for some it doesn’t count as that text maybe something they are passionate about unlike their assignment. The concept of writing then goes unacknowledged and isn’t looked at as a fun activity for many. This tends to happen after submitting assignments and not receiving the grade you may
How can I become a better writer? Throughout my writing experiences, I have learned I have many weaknesses along with strengths. My experiences with writing has not always been the best, but over time, with lots of practice and instructions from my instructors, I can proudly say that I have gained a better understanding on the layout of essays and papers. As well as understanding how to write correctly my goal as a writer is to learn how to overcome my weaknesses and use my strengths to my highest ability. I have many strengths, weaknesses and goals that I plan to achieve and overcome in my college career.
In my first “Who I am as a Writer” paper I stated how one of the areas that I needed to improve was writing. I went into more depth talking about how my writing is not descriptive enough and how I cannot grab the reader's attention. Even though I still need to continue making improvements, I have gotten better in both of these aspects. Compared to my papers in high school my introduction paragraphs have improved.
The best writing I’ve ever produced is from last semester I wrote a paper for Sociology on how the movie “Selma” related to what we were learning in class. This is the best writing I’ve produced because I thought long and hard about what I was going to write and ended up making a 100 on the paper which I was very excited about. Another reason is that I’m not particularly exceptional at writing I struggle with what words to use and how to really make my writing mean something to the person reading it, and my teacher left me a comment saying how I had thought outside the box and done very well. When I’m writing, my only fear is that I could be using better words so that’s why after I write a paper I always like to continuously edit it until I’m satisfied. Challenges for me are thinking of what to write I guess you could say that I get writers block and I must take breaks and really think about what I want my paper to convey, but once I get an idea usually I’m and can come up with more ideas it’s just really that first few sentences in a paragraph that get me.
Would you believe me if I told you that masters of any art still practice the skills that got them to where they are now? This might not come as a surprise to most, but success and perfection is measured in time. Repetition is key when talking about mastering skills. There are many steps that have helped me through my writing process. Thinking planning, and revision are skills that have made me a better writer. These skills are crucial for becoming a better writer because it decides the volume of my work and makes sure the reader understands my intent.
Al, Alde, de, shon, deshon, and Al’Deshon my name takes on many forms. Kind of like my writing in a sense. I have never been a strong writing also being the reason, I took this class first semester I think. If I get it out of the way maybe I’ll have an easier chance of reaching the finish line happening to be graduation.
This semester involved many writings that challenged my process in ways big and small. The variety of prompts each had their own details that required me to change perspectives as well as research topics to test my abilities as a writer. The topic that I felt helped me grow as a writer the most was the Personal Narrative. This essays caused me to think in its own way and only after completion was I able to effectively use the methods it taught me in my other assignments.
As this semester comes to a close, I have become to realize how much I’ve grown as a writer. After taking this class, I have noticed that I have gained more and more of a voice in my writing. When faced with having to write about subjective topics, I have learned how to voice my opinions in papers in order to make them more effective. My writing has greatly evolved because of this class. Not only has it shown me I have to work on sentence variety, but it has also allowed me to work on word choice which is something I have always struggled with throughout my high school career. Struggling with how to put things into words as exactly how I see them has been a struggle for me throughout this course. Despite how much I’ve grown as writer, I have
Thinking about our first writing assignment, one of the suggestions focuses on the comparison of writing to running, it became apparent to me that this is something I would enjoy writing about. I am a long time running advocate, competing in marathons, and a neophyte writing student, and I find many similarities in both endeavors.
I learned a lot from this experience. I was familiar with all the kinds of writing, but I wasn't familiar with how to go about writing them. Through the assignments and tests I had to take, I know that it is important to know how to do different kinds of writing. As for grammar, I've become a lot careful with how I write. I've been checking every paragraph as write and this is something I'll continue to do. I've enjoyed writing since the eighth grade, but I've never felt like I've been improving. I've realized that I am much better than I thought I was. I'm glad I had this opportunity. I know it'll really help me in the long run.