Personal Narrative: What I Learned In My Writing Class

Arriving in this class I didn’t really know what to expect, and having a fragile background in English I was a bit concerned on how I would perform. Carrying over twenty years of discouragement stemming from my high school years, I thought I knew enough but came to the realization I didn’t. After a few weeks of settling in to class it felt like doors that I didn’t know how to open could be now opened and ignited my desire for more knowledge. For the first time in my life I was excited to learn English and eager to use it. My reading was above normal along with my vocabulary, however my grammar, and writing structure was my weakest point and that’s what I wanted to focus on.

In this class, I have learned many new skills to improve my writing, and I have also learned new grammar rules. In regards to my writing, I have learned the importance of freewriting when beginning to write a paper. Additionally, I now know to allow ample time for revising and editing because I can look at my work critically for mistakes and make necessary changes. Furthermore, I have learned about grammar rules such as pronoun-antecedent agreement. This rule is something that I know subconsciously, but being made aware of it has allowed me to find mistakes I make more often.

I believe I have grown a lot since the beginning of this course. My writing was severely lacking grammar and punctuation. I didn’t use any punctuation other than periods and very few commas spersed throughout my papers. My papers still need help in that area, but I have improved. I now know where they need to go and when it’s appropriate to use them. My papers aren’t exactly flawless but they are better than before. I would write how I speak at times and I knew it wasn’t right, but I would still do it because it allowed my papers to flow better in my mind. I read my papers out loud to help avoid my problem with writing how I speak. I’ve learned my writing style in this course, or lack thereof. I found a program that would benefit me now and

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.

As technology evolves, the traditional style writing classrooms should do so as well. Students are used to the typical routine, in which an instructor lecture and hands out assignments. However, is that really the most effective way of teaching for all students? Teachers neglect the fact that not all students learn the same way. In learning this, I propose some changes that could be made in order to increase learning effectively such as; the choice of physical work verses online work, communications and feedback to students, and essays.

I feel that I have improved my writing abilities during the course of this class. I am looking forward to applying the new found skills to future classes. One valuable tip I learned was to always read a paper out loud before turning it in. This has helped me to catch many errors. I had never thought of doing this prior to this class. It is an excellent tip because when you’re reading to yourself in your head you often miss errors. Once you read them out loud you can hear how things sound and will notice if something does not sound right. Putting the assignment away and coming back to it was also a great tip. I have found when I come back to an assignment I will notice a wrong word or punctuation that I hadn’t seen before. It also gives you a chance to really think on the topic and come up with more detail.

Physics has been both a challenging and deeply beneficial course. The reason this course has been difficult for me isn’t because it is an AP class. It also isn’t because I am only a sophomore, my age has no real impact in this instance. This class has been difficult for me because it presented several ideas in ways I had never challenged before. It has truly made me question my way of thinking and has opened up my eyes to the world around me. Some of the things I’ve learned in class I’ve already observed before but never knew why. Other things I’ve been blind to and finding out the truth gives me a whole new perspective. I have had to retrain my brain out of its misconception of reality. Learning something entirely new is easy. The real challenge occurs when you have to forget what you thought you knew and replace it with something entirely different.

I can still remember my heart pounding out of my chest. It was my first time in Writing 1, and my nerves were mostly the result of a friend’s advice. Winter quarter, my friend told me about her struggles in her writing class and she advised me not to take Professor Bernstein for Writing because as she said “he is really tough and a very hard grader.” However, I had no other option but to take writing with Professor Bernstein because all the other writing 1 classes conflicted with my schedule. Nevertheless, nine weeks have past since I first stepped foot in Writing 1, and I can certainly say that I have learned more than I ever expected. Yes, it is true, this class has been a challenge like no other, especially for me, being that English is

My best memory about writing is from back in elementary school, 4th grade. I had just passed out of my reading and writing class that I was taking for extra help. I struggled with reading and writing, but that class taught me to keep pushing to learn even if it’s hard. My 4th grade class was writing stories and I wrote one about a lion and a dog that became friends because they both liked ice cream. It was a competition because whoever wrote the story with the least amount of grammar and spelling errors would get an ice cream sandwich after recess. Eventually my teacher announced the winner after reading and correcting all of our stories. I, Elizabeth Loberg had won the ice cream sandwich because I didn’t have any grammar or spelling errors

I have improved as a writer greatly since the beginning of the year. Many great accomplishments have happened from just writing all the time and taking a greater look on how to improve writing. Since the First-Week essay and the Midterm Reflection, I have gained many skills that I can take with to college in the future. Also, I learned how to write conclusions, in text citations, bibliography and connecting the thought into another topic in the same paragraph better. Some of the skills I have gained through this course is the discipline to continue making progress on the essay, organization and not putting the project off until last minute.

I have never taken an online class so I am actually very nervous on how it will go. Also, being an honors course, which I’ve never taken doesn’t make things a little better. I really enjoy writing about specific topics or ideas. Writing creatively isn’t me, but anything to help improve my writing skills. Hopefully all goes well and I pass the course to continue to move on in my degree plan.

There are many aspects that I would like to change to improve my writing skills. The first thing I would like to do is imply what my main idea is instead of stating it. The main reason I want to improve on this is because I feel that my writing style doesn’t change. I want my writing to be complex. I know that implying the main idea can be a little tricky. I’ve been researching and I’m learning that I need to find the common bond among the details in the passage. I think this issue affected me when I took college composition one because I chose to write an essay about school lunches affecting children’s diets. For the body of my paragraph, every sentence began with “the school association needs to”. My style was just too plain and boring. I

Today, I was given the worst news that I could have possibly been given at the age of 20, I cannot write. The feelings and emotions of disappointment and anger creepered into my head as my boss broke the news to me. While he was informing me of my needless word usage and horrific sentence structure, I thought, “Wow, previously before this very moment I was feeling ecstatic. I had been learning many things, more than I have learned during a week of college, and yet I fell short.” After crucially critiquing my skill level he had advised me to read “the elements of style.” After skimming through the first few pages, I knew that there was hope for me to become a better writer. So, instead of crying my eyes out, I set my goal which is becoming a

I have always been passionate about writing. From a young age, I would wake up on Saturdays and run straight to the computer to pour all of my thoughts into whatever story I would imagine that week. It brought me great delight and pleasure to express my thoughts in a way over which I had free reign, creating beings and worlds without limit or restraint of reality. I see writing as my best and most natural form of communication.

As we come to the end of this semester, I am excited to start something new. Expository writing has taught me to think out side the box on topics. It allowed me to free write which I think every student should be able to. I'm glad we did thes blogs, there was a lot of room to have freedom on our writing.