As my Writing 39C course comes to a close, now is a great time to look at the journey I have taken to get here. I’ll start with my high school experience with writing. Although, I wasn’t a terrible writer, I didn’t strive to be the best writer I could be. Although I had a decent writing skill, enough to pass the AP English exam at least, I never really pushed my writing abilities to anything beyond the minimum amount needed to pass with a decent grade. Once I got to college, however, writing was a different story. When I came into Writing 39B, I felt it would be something similar to my experiences in my high school AP English classes. Do the assignments with a minimal amount of work in order to get a decent grade, and just pass the class. However, as the course proceeded, I learned that I actually needed to make an effort to apply skill to my writing in order to do well. This was the first time I actually had to rigorously challenge my current skills in order to improve. As 39B came to a close, I felt that I had actually improved my composition skill. Writing 39C was now where I solidified and revised some of the techniques I learned in 39B, broke some bad habits, and worked to understand my style of writing. Working through the Historical Conservation Project (HCP) and Advocacy Project (AP), I have pushed myself to improve my writing skill. Although I have learned a lot throughout this quarters here at UCI, I want to emphasize three main areas that I have made great strides in: research, drafting, and revision.
Research
I came into Writing 39C with some formal lessons on how to research, mainly from high school. However, since I was taught those lessons years ago, I came into Writing 39C with a clear head. My primary research focus throughout the quarter was on copyright law and how the current law is out of touch with the Internet age. I got this idea from a course I took in the previous quarter. The course was on cyberspeech and gaming, with a focus on obscenity laws and, the thing I found most interesting, copyright and fair use. Given my interest in the topic and slight familiarity, I chose to tackle the problem of copyright law and fair use. Starting my research, I immediately went to
Writing is one of the most important skills that I have learned throughout my years in school. I have learned that no matter how much I love or hate it, writing is a necessity; I might as well try to be good at it. Writing has been in my life for many years. There are many types of writing, educational writing and personal writing are two that I will mention in this essay. I have learned how to allow writing to help me in my daily life. When I began writing I hated it, however, I have learned the many uses of it, and it has become a huge part of my life.
In, high school my teachers assign me with different kinds of reading and writing. The types reading that i remember is the Killing Mocking Bird and The Adventure of Odysseus in freshman year of highschool. I didn't like the two book that much. Next the types of writing i recall writing is an observation poem in my english writing class i had to observe an thing and write at least five line poems using the four key items(see, hear, feel, and think). I had to write a lot summaries on articles and writing prompts in four years in secondary school. Also, i did a reflection essay where i had created an claim, counterclaim, evidence, rebuttal, TAG (title, Author, and Genre) of information and quote of one of the scenes in the story of Shakespeare Hamlet before i start my reflection writing.
During the transition from a high school writer to a collegiate writer, my strength at understanding the basic principles of
Think about your experiences of writing at college. Which types of assignments have you found helpful in strengthening your writing skills? Where do you want to improve your writing? What’s the most useful advice you’re received that’s helped you improve your writing. Be as specific as possible.
I began writing with basic vocabulary and barely any sentence variety. As the year progressed, I learned to advance my vocabulary and word choice in addition to incorporating a diversity of sentence structure. Nearing the end of the school year, I acknowledge that I have grown and learned more about writing. I anticipate that I will receive even more arduous writing assignments that require more research and time. Although it will be challenging, I feel confident that I will do well because I feel well prepared from all I’ve done this year. As I grow older, I will have to continue to write. I know I can take the knowledge I’ve learned this year and apply it to future papers for years to
Writing 205 has taught me more then just writing stratagies, it has taught me who I am as a writer. Throughout the course of the semester I have learned new strategies, techniques, and tools that have helped me develop as a writer, as well as establishing my voice. Through vigorous course work I can say that I am more educated on writing skills in addition to annotating sources and genres. Reflecting back on this past semester I see how each unit has branched from each other as a guide for what was to come next. This made going from unit to unit flow in a natural way to achieve the best final product.
At the start of this course, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had a goal for myself to improve and learn skills that would make writing less daunting for me. I have learned so many things about my writing that I didn’t think much about before. Another goal I had was to break the cookie-cutter mold that was set upon me throughout high school. During the process of revision, I discovered many things about myself as a writer and techniques that have been effective for me in the writing process.
Over the past four months, I have made great strides as a writer. The area where I have seen the most growth is in my use of the writing process. Prior to my enrollment in this course, I would sit down and write all my papers in one sitting. This class has taught me how to lay out a plan for my papers. I have learned how to effectively brainstorm/research, draft, and revise my writings before I complete them. Also I have learned to not just stop there, instead I am now going back and reflecting on my work after I complete it. This allows me to identify where I prospered and also where my downfalls may have been. With this information, I am able to apply this to future writings of mine; lessons that will stay with me forever.
This course offers numerous opportunities to improve our writing. In this class, I not only enhanced the skills I already had, but also learned new writing concepts. Before I took this class, I knew that my writing is poor, and I have always wanted to improve it; however, I did not know how and what aspects of writing to improve. So, I came into this class with the ambition to improve my writing, and I have accomplished my goal although there is still room for improvement. At this point of this course, I have learned the elements that successful writing is composed of, and I am now able to categorize the various techniques that can work together to define strong
From the early beginning of the school year to the current day, my writing skills and knowledge have improved and broadened over time. If not drastic, the change is noticeable nevertheless. For almost an entirety of eighth grade, assignments of varying difficulty challenged me to a degree. To be frank, some seemed as though they were beyond my comprehension and ability. However, determination amalgamated with knowledge obtained in advance helped me to overcome my doubts, for I exceeded my expectations; surprisingly good grades and comments are a delight, owing to the fact of that I don’t tend to think of myself as being proficient at writing. Consequently, the assignments given to me this school year shaped me into who I am as a writer.
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.
I have never been an excellent student and perennially struggled with English, Math, and Science growing up. These subjects would cast a pall over my day and school work. Anxiety would well up inside of me which often resulted with me passed out across my desk sleeping through parts of class. When I would return home at day’s end, I rarely completed my homework. When I did try to complete homework, it often ended in tears of frustration or the hurling of a book across the room. Taking this class has helped to quell a portion of that anxiety and frustration. It was a grueling class, seemingly impossible at times, but taking this class has given me the confidence to know that not only can I finish the class if I work hard but can also excel! Writing is something that I will exercise throughout my college curriculum and my life. It will help to convey my ideas to the instructor, peers, bosses, and co-workers. In my college curriculum, it will also show my instructors that I’m learning the information provided and how to apply that knowledge appropriately. It will allow me to complete assignments, discussions, and reports, and I will also apply writing in basic communication when necessary.
Writing is way that we can express ourselves, it is a way to interface ideas and thoughts and to prove a point. Throughout my writing experience or process I have struggled with writing especially using details or really expressing myself my work. In this course Facts & Fiction: Portraits in World Art I expect to gain more knowledge on how to write a perfect essay, story, letter, and assignment. I expect to learn new genres and rhetorical situations. I also think my writing will improve academically and I will develop my skills in writing. Also taking my writing to a different point of view, level, and writing something different rather than the usual. I look forward to getting feedback from my peers and learning their thoughts on my writing and how they can help me improve.
Over the course of this past semester, my ability to write has improved tremendously. Prior to undertaking this course, my expertise in writing was not as fine-tuned as it should have been. I had never previously been enrolled in a class specifically tailored to writing-- which was quite clear. Upon reading my past works, it becomes apparent that my writing style consisted of fluff, small words, and inconsistently structured sentences. These problems have, for the most part, been remedied with the coursework I have tackled in College Writing. Rather than long, drawn out papers that take an eternity to reach the primary point, my recent work is much nicer in terms of composition and grammar. I credit these improvements to the three primary
My writing skills are decent, if I take the time to fully process my thoughts. When it is a timed assignment or test, my skills go right out the window, I concentrate more on answering the prompt rather than the grammar, punctuation, or structure. It’s like a jumbled mess of writing filled with lots of errors. When I’m writing my main goals are to answer the prompt, have good structure, and no grammatical or punctuation errors. These goals sometimes get in the way of me expressing myself freely; if a sentence doesn’t flow right with rest of the paragraph, I will re-examine my paragraph or paper to see if I can conjure up a sentence to finish out my paragraph before moving on to the next paragraph. Another example is if I feel like I don’t