Personal Narrative: What I Learned In My Writing Class

In elementary school I used to enjoy projects where we had to write our own stories and complete the pages with pictures or drawings. I would make up all kinds of stories of all sorts like an All-Star basketball player who couldn’t be stopped, magical worlds, to even an evil Tooth Fairy. Short Fiction is kind of the only writing that I like to do. Going into Middle and High School I was introduced to formal, structured type of writing that was way different from what I liked to write when I was younger. As I got more and more formal writing prompts I began to stop like writing. It because a struggle for me to transition from fun, fictional writing to formal types of

I have truly enjoyed writing for most of my life and after this class I will continue to enjoy writing hopefully with more skill. I have always viewed myself as a fairly strong writer and this class has reaffirmed that for me, but it has also shown weaknesses in my writing. As an introduction level class this has been one of my favorites; at some point I will take a higher level, even though it is not required for my major. Even though this class is almost over I am continuing to learn. I also love that this class will help me with literally ever other class in my college career. I am not a particularly strong reader, but as my writing skills improve so do the reading skills. While in this class I have learned a lot about everything from what I can improve, to subjects that interest me, and constructing a successful paper.

I started writing fiction in elementary school, and never looked back. Tucked away among old report cards and craft projects, my mother still has the multicolored notebook containing my first short story, written when I was in first grade. (It's a treat. I may share it here at some point.) So, when I say that writing in ingrained in me, that it's part of who I am, I mean it.

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.

As a young child I always prided myself in my writing. I attended the Young Authors Conference every year during elementary school. The Young Authors Conference allowed us to write and share books that

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.

In my childhood I was not taught the fundamentals of proper writing. Nor was it influenced in my household to dedicate time for writing. My father owned his own business, therefore, I always saw him writing inventory and receipts. As for my mother, I can recall her writing down messages from phone calls. At school I found little to no growth in my writing. When I did face a task that required legible writing I would seek help from my friend Sandra. This class is by far the first English course I have taken were I could truly say lectures are broken down enough for me to develop satisfactory growth. I am still a developing writer, but I have made a lot of progress because of influences of my own desire to learn, Professor Anna C. Morrison, 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.

What I was writing was not as important to me as how I made it look. That's where all my time and focus was spent. I was given a good opportunity to get into writing in the years that followed fifth grade. This opportunity was given to me in the form of journal writing in junior high (grades 6,7, and 8). A few people every day would read their journal out loud and you can tell that some of them really got into. I however, am sorry to say I let the chance pass me by. The journals had a given subjects to write about but they weren't mandatory. I remember this one kid, Peter. Instead of writing about the journal topic he would write a Star Wars story. This other kid, Joey, reminded me of "Pinky and The Brain." He would always write about ways to try and take over the world-again and again. Looking back I wish I had been as creative as those two young men. Instead I blew off the journal writing. To me it was just another busy work assignment.

I wrote my first short story when I was eight-years-old. It evolved into a complex story as the years went by, and that story will someday be a children’s book. I will admit, though, that I did not always want to major in English. In second grade, my weeks consisted of wrapping my dog’s “broken” legs in toilet paper and researching diseases and cures. Other weeks included writing short stories and attempting to teach my dogs how to read. When literature became a higher priority, my desire to become a physician faded into a desire to become a writer.

I feel I have recently became a fluent writer after my junior year of high school. I always thought I was very well at typing essays and thinking of thoughts quickly and then being able to put them on the screen. I was never right and I have always received a B or lower on my writing assignments. After receiving those almost my whole elementary and middle school careers I was always afraid of coming to high school and getting assigned a writing assignment. I like to read

In this semester my achievement of improving my writing skills has increased significantly. My sentence lengths vary in a positive manner along with my word choice improving, becoming more complex and of writing expectation. My main struggle this semester would be the peer editing. Although I have improved significantly I still find it difficult to edit others papers. Further more than the common spelling and grammatical errors. I believe my essays have improved drastically from the beginning of the semester towards the end.

I plan to become better by practicing my writing everyday, whether it be a blog post, short story or essay.

Since beginning to write papers in English class, I have had countless successes and failures. While many of my English classes have taught me how to improve my writing, I have not learned very much in others. My most recent English class was last year, my sophomore year. My class was particularly undersized; therefore, it gave each student the opportunity to have additional individual attention. Throughout the class I experienced high points, weaknesses, and even difficulties that I never overcame. Overall, my writing skills improved, but only marginally.

Writing has always been something I dread. It’s weird because I love talking and telling stories, but the moment I have to write it all down on paper, I become frantic. It’s almost as if a horse race just begun in my mind, with hundreds of horses, or words, running through my mind, unable to place them in chronological order. Because I struggle to form satisfying sentence structure, it takes me hours, sometimes even days, to write one paper. It’s not that I think I’m a “bad writer,” I just get discouraged easily. Needless to say, I don’t think highly of my writing skills. When I was little I loved to both read and write. I read just about any book I could get my hands on, and my journal was my go to for my daily adventures. Although it’s