Personal Reflection : Taking An English Lab

While writing might seem like a simple task, it can be a daunting task for a lot of people. Sometimes it can be hard to express the ideas in your mind in the words of a paper. This results in a disconnect with what a writer may actually think. A great writer is one that can transform his thoughts into words perfectly. This is a craft that takes many years to perfect, which is why writing is troublesome for a lot of us. Many students also have had bad experiences with writing. Maybe they had a teacher that didn’t try to support them and their writing. They might not have ever gotten the help they needed and may feel that they are in a hole where their writing can’t get better. At this point, they just accept that their writing will never get 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.

When I started my first semester of college, I was very worried about writing essays and research papers. I felt like my writing skills lacked greatly compared to other students. I knew a few things of which I could improve on right off the bat, such as my vocabulary skills and organizational skills. To say the least I was very nervous about how my writing composition course would be like and did not think it would go very well for me. However, I learned so many techniques that have helped my writing skills grow. It all started with learning how to stay organized, planning what to write in your essay in outline form and sticking to it really helped when writing essays. These techniques helped me become more confident in my essays and allowed writing essays to become a lot easier. The few aspects in which I am strong in while writing essays is my ability to stay organized, focused and be very clear about what I am writing. Nonetheless, there is always room for improvement; a few things that I can think of being grammar and punctuation due to no revising, embedding quotes smoothly, and citing sources correctly.

Before I came to college I thought that I was pretty excellent at writing. The first time I got a paper back I was devastated. My paper was plagued with red ink splotches. Thereafter, I was determined to write a better paper. Though, there are many things I struggle with; I am bound to enlightenment.

I have never really considered myself a good writer I have always had problems with starting a paper and sometime even finishing it. I also have problems writing sentences that are too long or finishing a thought, as well as figuring out where to put a semicolon or coma because I tend to just write whatever comes to my

Let's be honest, I'm not the best writer. I have had to write paper after paper for about 12 weeks. Writing isn’t my strong suit and I don't think it will ever be a strong suit of mine. During the 12 weeks of composition class, I have seen improvement in my writing. Many people don’t like writing but writing skills are needed in life. I'm a junior in high school and if I want to get scholarships for college, I'm going to need to write essays. Whether I become a plumber or a CEO I need writing skills.

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.

Everyone has their own approach to writing. My approach is the writer who has a lot of ideas, but I tend to cram too many awkward details into one whole sentence with the help of the thesaurus. I definitely am not a perfect writer and am very far from it. Since I took college prep writing, I have improved my writing skills and taken them to a whole new level. I first started out as a girl who was having lots of conventions in her papers to barely making any now. I still have some mistakes here and there, but what can I say; I’m not perfect. I also have improved with awkward words and run-on sentences. I started out from my first paper getting a C, and today my papers are now B+’s. I still have room for lots of improvement, but I always give my best.

In the past, my experiences with writing have been basic. Other than when I took an advanced English class my junior year of high school, I have taken the common English classes for those of my age. My English course during my senior year of high school was heavily weighted on our ability to write, even though the teacher never taught us how. He expected us to know how to write perfectly, and demolished us when we could not live up to his standards. In a way, this helped me become a stronger writer, but it definitely made me more self-conscious about my writing. With that being said, I would have to go on to say that my biggest weakness as a writer is the fact that I am extremely self-conscious about my writing. I do not like others to read

When I first started the class I was struggling a lot. Since English is my second language, I had many stressful moments that made me think about dropping my classes. But when I thought about my future, I just kept studying even harder, waiting for my performance to improve. As a result, I felt like every time I wrote an essay, it got easier, which tells me that I’m on the right path. In addition, this class has helped me improve my grammar, taught me an important life lesson about sticking on my goal and helped me to enhance my computer skills

Firstly, your class has taught me many things about English. For example, you taught us the correct way to annotate a text and how to be more clear while trying to say/ write something. Also, you have educated me how to write an article reflection. Additionally, I have learned many different facts about Shakespeare when we did the research on him. In fact, I have also been taught many new words that I would have never heard from the WODs. Also, you taught me not to use be-verbs to make sentences more interesting. Furthermore, you told me the difference of paraphrasing and explaining something. Making connections to the text or article is another lesson you have instilled me this year. I also know how to cite text and provide a concise summary of a text.

English was and has been my weakest subject since I was introduced to it in Kindergarten, and until this day. I often understand concepts related to math and science, however, vocabulary, spelling, critical analysis, speaking, and reading are skills I find hard to master. In fact, some ideas seem to go through one ear, and out the other. I never understood English’s importance when I was a kid. Instead of exploring the different concepts, I thought that grammar, vocabulary, spelling, etc. were not as important as math or science. I was unaware of how important English was when I was younger, causing me to not care much about reading, writing, or speaking. Now that I have a bit more experience in the real world, I understand that English is essential to lead a successful life. This is due to the fact that English can help someone mentally, physically, and overtime, financially. Due to my late notice, I fell behind in English, which shows through my reading level, writing, and vocabulary. Despite the tough times and headaches that were forced upon me as an English student, I still remain diligent and put in massive amounts of effort into each assignment.

The year is 2005. The room is calm and silent, but my heart is a symphony. I am glued to a chair and not by choice. A black and white puddle surrounds me. The symphony gets louder as the minutes go by. The smell of ink fills the air as I am submerged in papers. I begin to drown in a sea of words I cannot comprehend. It would be years before I would learn to swim.

In the fall, as I entered my first semester of college I had an overwhelming rush of emotions; I was nervous and uneasy. I had left not only my home, but also my city of Dubai as a whole. For the first few weeks I knew, minimal people, it was not until I attended my first English class that I had done an exercise that allowed me to get to know people in my class. From that time forward, I began to feel satisfied that I started to get to know people, and felt comfortable enough to allow my writing journey to take its coarse.

In the spring of 2013, I was a sophomore in high school, and the beginning of my troubles began. Our class was to take a placement test to see what class we would take for our junior year. I scored exceptional in the math and English portions of the test so my principal asked me to take advanced placement math and English. I have always liked math, but my English skills have lacked so I told him that I would take the math, but I wouldn’t make it in English. He insisted that I took advanced English anyway so I enrolled in it.