Reading And Writing Class Analysis

My English Literature major has helped me to achieve an outstanding level of appreciation, enjoyment, and knowledge of both American and British Literature. As a high school AP English student, I struggled through great works like Hamlet and To the Lighthouse. My teacher’s daily lectures (there was no such thing as class discussion) taught me merely to interpret the works as critics had in the past. I did not enjoy the reading or writing process. As a freshman at Loras, I was enrolled in the Critical Writing: Poetry class. For the first time since grade school, my writing ability was praised and the sharing of my ideas was encouraged by an enthusiastic and nurturing professor. Despite the difficulty of poetry, I enjoyed reading it.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy literature, it’s just I’m not the best with it. The star reading test is what made me realize I’m not the best with literature, in middle school all my friends would always get advanced scores and I would just have basic scores. Sometimes this made me really mad, I want to be good at everything I do and whenever I’m not I get upset.

As a high school student taking on a college course, I acknowledged and accepted the challenge that lay ahead of me. The main reason I selected Composition I and II was that it allowed me to vastly improve my overall writing skills. Developing my techniques will benefit me when I am required to compose any writing assignments for my future college classes. Therefore, with that goal in mind, I chose to take this class while still attending high school. I began this class as an average writer; additionally, I did not know the majority of the writing rules or how to make an essay meet its potential. Over the course of these two classes, I believe that I have proven my writing to be more seamless and interesting to read.

At the beginning of the semester I entered General Studies Writing 1110, not knowing what to expect. I knew the class was solely based on writing and perfecting personal style, but I never anticipated the valuable information I would learn throughout the course of the year. The only advanced English class I have taken in high school was English Honors in eighth grade. That class gave me the base knowledge of writing, grammar and form that has helped me through my four essays in this class. Starting out, I was not sure what the standard for passing was; even though it was unclear to me what passing was, I strove for perfection. By the time the second essay came around I realized my writing was never perfect. Peer editors and family played a

Coming into college, I have had experience in writing analytical essays, research papers, and creative writing projects. For two years in a row I had the privilege to be taught by the same honor’s English teacher—Mr. McConahay. Mr. McConahay constantly stressed the importance of writing. He spent the past two years preparing us for college level writing because he knows that in college, writing is a big part of one’s English class. We wrote about American citizenship and what it meant to be a citizen of the world as well as a citizen of one’s community. Mr. McConahay valued structure and a good thesis the most out of anything. This writing was very difficult for me because my mind works more creatively than it does analytically. Academic writing has always been my weakest attribute when it came to schooling. I would much rather write a paper full of opinions or made up people rather than write a research paper. Though his class was hard for me, I noticed a difference in my writing as it improved over the course of the years. Mr.

Throughout middle school my classes were all the same, I showed up, learned, received my assignments, and left. There was one class that was different; it was my Language Arts class. The teacher’s name was Mrs. Lorentsen and she was not the average teacher. For example, in her class we rarely had lectures and I can remember vividly my adventures with her. We completed assignments that were called Independent Study Projects (ISPs), Common Place Books (CPBs), and completed 3D book reports. These are all different ways of presenting information through creativity and problem solving. These foreign type assignments seemed strange at first, as they are different from a traditional classroom setting. I quickly adjusted to her classroom, and learned that I enjoyed this style of learning. Throughout the class Mrs. Lorentsen and I both noticed a commonality in my writing. Putting my thoughts and opinions on paper became a struggle for me.

Writing, in terms of school work (especially considering essays, prompts, and anything that somehow constricts freedom of thoughts or ideas in any way), does not come natural to me. Writing is hard, no matter what kind of writing it is, but writing papers is especially hard. Some people would choose, outside of forced schoolwork, to write essays and papers and prompts. I do not choose to do such, as many of them may not make much sense. For me, writing short stories or poems or longer short stories (novellas?) comes natural to me. They are free, not necessarily bound by constrictions from a school assignment. But, as prompted, this reflection comes into play with the writing skills used in an English class. I am hoping through this class to make my essay writing (and

Hey Kennedy! You really missed out on not coming to the Summer Bridge Program. It’s been really helpful and has definitely prepared me for my engineering career. I think that the math class is my favorite, but the writing class is definitely the most helpful. It’s helped me remember some things that I’ve forgotten about writing, however, it’s also introduced me to the writing I’ll have to do in the engineering field. The assignments have been easy, but we got to interview a professor in our major which was pretty cool.

The first couple days of class were not as bad as I thought they would be. I was pretty lonely at first because I had no friends, but a couple of days later I started becoming more social and made a couple friends. My classes are exactly what I expected, I knew they would be harder than high school but still do-able. One thing that was new to me was that my teachers didn’t know me because they are all big lecture classes. The reason why I like my writing class because it’s a small class and my professor is nice, outgoing and makes the class fun. The work isn’t too overwhelming yet, but blackboard is very confusing sometimes and I missed some assignments.

This semester has been quite different, mainly because I took a few different English classes that I normal wouldn’t have taken. I took a ‘reading’ class; I miss reading classes in school. Don’t get me wrong, writing classes are important too, and I’m not just saying that because I’m writing this essay for a writing class. They’re important due to the fact that they teach valuable lessons like correct punctuation, grammar, spelling, dictation and most importantly, how to bull crap your way through any paper.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of a college English class is great deal of reading and paperwork. In a typical English class I expect lengthy reading assignments and a ton of writing, but for this course, I expect to accomplish more than just reading stories and writing essays based on them. In this course I expect to acquire the literary skills that would enable and enhance my abilities to read, write and think at a college level. Majority of college English courses utilize a foundation of critical thinking skills and reading comprehension. Taking this course should improve my overall writing ability and broaden my perspective as a creative writer.

During this English class have learned a ton of new material. English and writing have always been one of my major struggles in school. While in high school I thought I had been taught everything in English material that I would need in life. I was totally wrong. Before learning in this class, I would just start writing. I really did not know how to plan a paper. Since this class, I can now plan a paper using an organized outline to write it.

What is Literature? The definition of literature has changed dramatically over many years. It has gone from being a synonym of literacy to encompassing all books written. However, Literature has grown into being a specific idea and many people disagree on exactly what should be considered Literature.

English is a subject I have always felt strong with as a student, this area of strength has not only benefitted me in my this course but has helped me to succeed in every class I have taken. American literature so far has gave me a new and refined understanding, from read and writing to communicating my ideas in group discussions. Never before have I been able to have such a confident understanding of was I was reading and writing. I have gained a new and refined belief of what it means to annotate a text and why it is important, though I will always have reserved feelings about them. In discussion groups by referring to my annotations I am able to express my ideas and observations about the text. I have never before been so challenged with a piece of writing, throughout my career as a student prompts had always been specific and specifications were always strict. Writing literary analysis was not only a new type of essay writing for me but it required me to refer back to my annotations and think deeper about why I was having certain thoughts and opinions on a text to develop an argument. Whether it is reading, writing, or speaking the significance of everything I have mastered, and will continue to learn in english class will allow me to have fate in they way I express myself in the future.

The word literature means ‘acquaintance with letters.’ With literature we can put anything and everything into words and play it like a video for someone else to see. It is a profession where words are arranged in such a way that they describe, feelings, emotions, experiences etc. it describes society and the people living in it, what they think of it and what they want it to be.