Deciding to take the leap at almost 30 years old, to go to college was a big one. I was very anxious as I started to register for class, writing is not my strong suit. I always viewed writing as creative and free flowing, which I have much difficulty with, structure and routine is more my speed. I did not believe I would do as well as I did in English 101, and actually enjoying it. I did have some difficulties at times, but I did not give up, I exhausted all available resources and did my best. I actually excel in public speaking, I am able to command my audience and keep them captivated until the very end. I do large presentations on a daily basis for work, my passion for my job shows through my presentations. I have never been good at putting in words on paper my thoughts, I tend to over think and the perfectionist in me is constantly looking for changes or tweaks that can be made. I also rely on facts and statistics and can use them to make compelling arguments, creativity tends to lack in train of thought. Although I was a bit overwhelmed before I began this course, I was looking forward to the possibility of unleashing any creativity bottled up deep inside me.
Learning that writing, although creative, is actual very structured really helped me become a better writer. I was able to understand article betters, and better understand what I was writing about. My essay themes for this semester was “Gender” and the “American Dream”. These topics held very close places in my
Over the course of this semester I learned a lot about myself as a writer. This English 101 class has really allowed me to expand my essay structure and ways of thinking. This was my first college writing course and it has given me much more freedom when writing because in high school I felt limited and like what we were writing was not very important. In high school I would write essays to just to fulfill the required word or page count and to a degree I still feel like this but maybe that is why I am an engineering major but in this course I actually was able to express my ideas and for the first time really test the limits of my writing capabilities. I really enjoyed being able to incorporate my voice more in my essays and I believe
Writing was never a known weakness of mine. However, I could never confidently call it a strength. Throughout the course of this semester, my writing style has evolved and I have rid my writing of many habitual mistakes. I have learned to appreciate writing much more, and enjoy the moments where my mind meets words on a paper. Creativity has always been one of my strong suits, but through this course I catered my creativity to compose a variety of essays and speeches. Likewise, public speaking is something that I did not struggle with in the past, yet the structure of the class required a video speeches which was fairly new to me. All in all, I have been able to identify and modify gaps in my composition of writing and speech as a result of this course.
I have written many different types of papers for all of my classes throughout high school. For my science classes, I have written several labs in the form of essays. Writing the essays was different for me because I did not really know that science had much to do with writing. It took me a while to gather all the information I needed to finish my lab assignments. Writing lab reports will definitely help me in my science courses in the next four years.
I learned that you are not only writing for your own benefit, your writing for your classmates, teachers and peers as well. It helps you gain common knowledge that you may not have known otherwise, as well as teaching us research skills that we will need later in life due to the rise is technology use. I have learned that research is a part of life and you will need it throughout college. Writing has helped me understand things I was unable to comprehend before, and gives me a feeling of capability. As Frederick Douglas, an African American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman, once wrote, “Thus, after a long, tedious effort for years, I finally succeeded in learning how to write” (McQuade and Atwan). At the beginning of the semester, I would have never guessed that I would finish this course on a positive note; however, I finished, and it was not as difficult as I thought it would
This semester has been full of different types of writing styles and writing topics. Throughout the semester of being in College Writing One we wrote a visual critique, critical review, rhetorical analysis, and an argument synthesis essay. All of the types of writings came with the struggles, strengths, and the learning parts to them. Overall writing all those different types of styles and topics I feel like I have become a little bit of a better writer than I was when I walked into the class back in January.
Over the course of this semester, I have learned many things to improve my writing. Having taken the course before, this semester has been an excellent opportunity to expand on my existing knowledge. Although I had written many essays before, there is still much to be learned and improved. Two factors of writing that I had learned or improved on this semester were transitions/topic sentences and how to properly structure a conclusion paragraph.
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.
This semester was my very first semester as a college student. Being the first, it was probably the semester I would learn the most in. I learned the expectations for writing that I will have to live up to for the next four years of my college career. Though my high school teachers were usually demanding because I was in the Honors English section throughout high school, writing in college has still ?raised the bar? for me. Also, in high school, we would have weeks to pick a topic, create a thesis, outline the paper, write the paper, and then revise the paper. In college, the time restraints are not quite as lenient. I?ve had to learn to manage my time and be more productive with what free moments I
The first day of class I wasn’t confident in my writing especially writing analytical essays. On the first day we rated our writing attitude on a scale of 1-5 and in the beginning of the semester mine was a 3. Now after taking this class, looking back as my essays I rate myself a 4 on scale. Activities that I found that supported my growth as a writer was connecting the Big Ideas to my essay as well as making connections to other experiences. Also what made me grow as a writer was the fact that when we did essays in class and on our own we started from the middle rather than starting with the introduction and not knowing where to start. This helped with writing our character analysis in Unit 2 The Ron Clark Story.
I have also realized that there are going to be many times you have to scrap ideas and start over. This semester I have realized that I try and perfect my assignments too much to where I start to crunch on time because it wasn’t to my expectation and I started over to many times, that there is in fact a way that too much thought can be put into a paper to where it becomes cluttered. The biggest growth I’ve seen over this semester is overall just my writing in general. At the beginning, my writing was very basic. My sentences were all around the same size and it was just not at the level of writing I would have liked it to be. The biggest thing that helped me with this over the semester would be just reading and editing mine as well as other peers’ papers. Towards the end of the semester it became easier to write, whether it was a personal, research, or
It gave me more of an understanding of what incoming college students face when writing and what to expect in this more academically challenged environment. “What Is ‘Academic’ Writing?” by L. Lennie Irvin is a short story about how first-time college students and how they think to have these kinds of expectation figured out to write an academically correct paper and the troubles they face. He also mentions the Importance of developing a writer’s sense, the myths about writing, the three most common types of college writing assignments and talks about the complex literacy tasks in assignment students struggle with. I really thought his story compare to a lot of what was happening in my life. I was struggling as a writer and I thought I knew what the expectations were going to be heading into college, but I didn’t. The number one thing I would like to focus on and compare it to my life as a writer are the myths people have about
During this semester, I have learned a great deal about my own writing, and writing in general. One of the main takeaways from this course for me was how to break down the intricate process of writing papers. In addition, I developed viable skills regarding going into more in-depth detail during each step of the writing process. I enjoyed having the freedom to write about a topic that I was able to choose. This allowed me to research and write about something that actually interested me immensely. Having to work with one topic for the entire semester taught me how to find reliable resources and how to pick out the essential research from each article.
Throughout this semester there are many skills that I have noticed have improved through the constant writing of essays for this class. The one that I find most noticeable is a habit I had long struggled with which was essentially my tendency to be over necessarily wordy when writing my essays. I believe that I was able to somewhat fix this subconsciously, just by knowing that I was no longer in high school, and could no longer get by with just attempting to fill up my word count. I also believe I have greatly improved in my topic selection. In high school I would throw caution to the wind and just pick whatever topic came to mind just in an effort to get it done. I have been much more calculated in college, and I believe that it has helped me write better essays. While these were the
During this semester, I have strengthened my writing by trying new writing techniques, learning about purpose, and finding new ways of combating writers block. My first essay in this class was less focused then the essays I wrote later in
I can remember seeing that I had to take an English class my first semester of college. I was already overwhelmed with starting college, and having to write college essays made me get even more nervous. I sat down with my mom and decided to look at the English classes available, and I finally decided that I had to take an evening class to make it work in my schedule. The first day of English came and now looking back it was not as bad as I thought. It made me a better writer and be where I am today. It may have taken me some time to get where I am today, but at least I am on the right track. English Composition helped me realize that I am my own author and have strengths that I did not realize I had.