Reflection Analysis

This semester has impacted me and my writing abilities greatly. I feel I have improved in all aspects of writing. Throughout High school writing was never my preferred subject, but after taking this class I have developed an interest in writing and no longer look at it as a chore, but more as a method to express myself.

Putting all the parts of writing together is what makes a good piece of writing. Over the semester, my realization of what I was doing wrong paired with the different formatting strategies and the desire to become a better writer has helped me to become better overall. I believe that practice makes perfect, and while I have not perfected my writing or even come close yet, I believe that I have gotten closer to being a proficient writer. I believe that this class has helped me to get closer to becoming a proficient writer, and will help me in my future classes and

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 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.

It was my first writing class as a college freshmen and I did not know what to expect, like whether or not the class would be harder compared to what I took in high school or even if I would enjoy taking class. But as soon as day one turned in into week one, than soon week fifteen I felt more comfortable in the class than what I have probably felt in the beginning. I felt like I could write anything my professor threw at me, because through writing I could express my individuality. It gives me the freedom to express myself through words, and write about things I felt passionate about writing about. I felt as though I writing because I wanted to, and less because I was assigned to do so.

I entered the fall semester viewing myself as a non-writer. I have always had trouble getting the ideas and thoughts out of my head and onto paper. I have always been more comfortable stating aloud what I thought as opposed to writing them down. This semester has taught me a great deal. I have learned that I am capable of accomplishing college level writing. Even more, I have learned that I can focus and dig deeper to add more detail than I had thought I could when I started this semester.

I feel that I have improved my writing abilities during the course of this class. I am looking forward to applying the new found skills to future classes. One valuable tip I learned was to always read a paper out loud before turning it in. This has helped me to catch many errors. I had never thought of doing this prior to this class. It is an excellent tip because when you’re reading to yourself in your head you often miss errors. Once you read them out loud you can hear how things sound and will notice if something does not sound right. Putting the assignment away and coming back to it was also a great tip. I have found when I come back to an assignment I will notice a wrong word or punctuation that I hadn’t seen before. It also gives you a chance to really think on the topic and come up with more detail.

Over the course of this semester I have became a much better writer. One area specifically where I have improved my writing skills is my approach to each paper. In the beginning of the semester, I knew what I wanted to say in my papers, but I didn't know how to state them in words on paper. This made me very frustrated and often caused me to procrastinate my papers until that last minute. As the semester progressed I learned from my past mistakes and ended up getting a better grade on every single one of my papers. This gave me confidence in myself, and made approaching my papers a lot easier.

I printed out this email and I highlighted the answers we were to bubble in. However, once we began to bubble in the answers there was a problem. The overwhelming majority of the students did not know their address. This created a major problem because I was given only one paper with the students’ address. Thus, I had to spend the majority of the time helping students with their addresses. Around 10:50 Tammy Becker walked in and told my class that we were being too loud (I was doing my best helping students fill out their address). She said we were to start the test at 11:05 am. As a result, I made sure we did start the test at 11:05 am. At 11:05 am the students began testing. I followed everything we were instructed to do during the PSAT.

One skill I greatly improved upon was my ability to gather and organize information. On my first paper, Arguing a Position (AaP), I did very poorly on this. The paper was arguing that the mass surveillance by the United States government had gone too far and was suppressing individuals’ freedoms. I spent a long time researching for this essay. When I went to sort through it all I had found that I had gathered way too much information and I had not organized it in any useful way. This put me behind the rest of the class in the writing process. I was still typing down to the very last day, while everyone else was editing, which hurt the quality of my essay. I did, however, learn from these mistakes. In my second essay, Proposing a Solution (PaS), I proposed a solution to the algae problem in Western Lake Erie. I feel I did much better at researching for this paper. I collected less information and only kept the information that I knew would be useful in writing the essay. This saved time which allowed me to put more effort into the quality of the writing. For this reason my PaS essay was much better than my AaP. This improvement shows that I have improved enough to earn credit for this course.

I always thought that my writing skills were pretty good until I started this class. It has been thirteen years since I graduated high school and I quickly realized that I had a lot of “refreshing” to do as far as writing papers. I actually felt very discouraged when I took the grammar test and did not score very well. I knew that I had to dedicate myself and put a lot of effort into this class to really improve. The practice quizzes were a major help to refresh on everything I must have forgotten since high school. Being able to write a quality paper is a skill that everyone should master. Writing is such a major part of communication in this day and age so being able to write an intelligent paper will benefit you not just through school but also through life. Writing skills are a reflection of intelligence and I want to perfect my writing the best that I can. Being able to write a quality paper is a skill that everyone should master. Writing is such a major part of communication in this day and age so being able to write an intelligent paper will benefit you not just through school but also through life. Writing skills are a reflection of intelligence and I want to perfect my writing the best that I can.

I believe that my approach to writing has changed over the course of the semester. My confidence in my writing has grown, as well as my knowledge in sentence structure, grammar, and word choice. At the beginning of the year, I doubted my writing abilities, but at this point, I feel as though I can handle large, intricate papers. I did not expect my writing to change drastically, but I did expect the small, technical details in my papers to improve, and I think they did. Overall, I have grown about as much as I expected to as a writer, and it has been very beneficial.

Over the course of the semester, there has been numerous amount of areas where I believe I have improved in comparison to high school. What has helped me in my writing is the writing class and the in-class writing workshop. The writing class that is located in the Kremen education building has helped me with my writing greatly because in the writing center the person in charge teach us lenses and we apply those lenses to the writing, draft, or reading that someone brings in. The in-class writing workshop has helped me because other students get to read my writing. This is helpful because I get feedback from many students and they let me know what needs to be fixed. A new tool I have been using is They Say I Say. The book is very helpful because of the information and examples it provides such as the templates. I have been applying the templates into my essays and I have seen a significant difference.

I believe I have achieved most of the course learning objectives as I pass this class with a c or higher. I undertook the writing process we learned in class and it has helped me become a better writer. Before I entered my freshman year of college I didn’t know how to write. But as I undertook the writing process I was taught in class I now know how to write. First when it came to writing my assignment papers for my class I grabbed a notebook and did prewriting . I brainstormed a list of ideas for my papers. I then had a plan on everything I was going to write about. I then sit down and write my first draft. I make sure my first paragraph is a strong

At the beginning of this class I was nervous on how this semester will go and whether or not I will succeed to my fullest potential in English. With that in my mind I still was trying my best to work at getting better, despite how much it made me cringe at the thought of it. My perspective of writing began to change as time went on, the assignments were based on interesting topics which made it a bit bearable for me. I’ve learned that you have to make the steps to get to the perfect paper. A paper requires you to brainstorm, make an outline, and writing your rough draft to get that feedback you need before finishing up that final draft. During this class I have also learned where to put my thesis and that I don’t need to have that three point subtopics of what you should talk about. The writing length started getting longer and I was a bit skeptical on how I can get to the word count or what will I talk about within my papers, but I have