Reflection Of A Short Story

While attending writing class, I learned about the 4 steps in writing, bases for revising, organizing, and connecting specific information, and I also learned about the different types of essays such as descriptive, narrative, process, cause and effect and argumentative essay. I have been a student at Milwaukee Area Technical College for 1 semester, and over the course of my enrollment I have grown and learned more that I knew prior to attending this writing course. Participating in this writing class has taught me so much more than stuff about literature and language, it has taught me another way of expressing myself. I have learned here how to write and express myself, how to think for myself, and how to find the answers to the things that I don 't know. Most importantly I have learned how important technique, outlines and organization are. My goal in this paper is to inform writers about how my writing skills have improved.

My first attempt at telling this story wasn’t the best. Aside from grammatical errors I lacked that passion that I needed to invoke in order for the story to come to life and I also left out details. As far as changes go, I changed about seventy-five percent of the entire story, which includes me just rewording certain parts of the story I also added more to it as well. Compared to my first draft I left out certain details in my final piece such as the protagonist having a sister, due to the fact that she really didn’t play a hug role in the story since she was so young, also because it was a recommendation from some of my peers.

Typically, when most people think about the writing process they think of terms such as a ‘thesis statement,’ developing an outline, body paragraphs, conclusion; it’s imperative to view writing this way. We have only been taught THIS way of writing almost directly after we learned how to spell words—you decide what to write about, usually specified in the thesis statement, then you write a series of paragraphs entailing how you came to this conclusion. Finally, you conclude your paper by restating exactly what it was you spent an entire essay writing about. And most people will go their entire lives believing that is the formula for an effective, well thought-out work of literature. But how often do we go back and read through our writing and completely resent how amateur and forced it sounds? This is usually a direct result of a lack of revision within a work. Defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a change or a set of changes that corrects or improves something” and “a new version of something that has been corrected or changed,” Revision is not a common word we think of when writing—this raises a serious question: how should you revise? In response to this to this, research was conducted to find a general view as to the significance of revision within various individual’s writing processes. These results, along with research from several academic articles provide a clear description as to where revision could be

Sommers explains to the reader the mindset of revision in the eyes of college freshman vs. experienced writers. Based on her research she was able to establish that the term “revision” has two drastic meanings when it comes to experienced vs. inexperienced writers. The college freshmen referred to revision as simply rewording the preexisting writing in their first draft. Sommers explains that the “scale of concern” for the college students was “deletion, substitution, addition, and rewording.” (380) In contrast, the experienced writers had a very different mindset when it came to their revision process. They explained when revising they focused on finding “shape” and “form” to their writing. To further explain, they do not have simply one rough daft that becomes a final draft, but rather they have numerous drafts that they continuously dig through to develop “structural patterns.” (384) In comparison to the college freshmen their revision process isn’t just rewording, it’s continuously reframing each draft. Through this research Sommers explains to the reader the way revisions should be, and the areas that people lack with misconceptions that the word “revising” simply means rewording but in Sommers’ opinion it’s a total revamping

This particular article has been of quite some help with improving my writing abilities! Do you ever find yourself rewriting instead of writing? If you are a writer and are in need of helpful hints with what I think is the most important part of the writing process, revision. In Internal Revision the author, Donald Murray, emphasizes this writing skill that is the least used but one of the most important.

English is a hard language to learn, for there are numerous elements of effective usage and writing. Many people, including me, struggle in writing because of a lack of knowledge. Since middle school, English was not a strong suit of mine. I struggled with the simplest of tasks often taking a considerably longer time to complete a task than the other students. Unmotivated teachers and a lack of interest resulted in remedial writing skills. To put it simply, I had little confidence in my writing and I dreaded taking the class because of the writing involved. In spite of my fears, I took the course and I was able to perfect and challenge my mediocre writing skills.

Everyone has their own approach to writing, but there are always ways to learn new methods to improve their writing style. Personally, I have experimented with different approaches to improve my writing every year. However, I have realized that I still have a lot of room for improvement and exploration. After reading Foley, Murray, Lamott, Elbow, and Flower, I gained a better understanding in how to improve my writing and identifying the mistakes and styles I have adopted in my writing that are not as effective. Thus, these articles have explained many strategies and styles such as the five paragraph essay, steps to having a good writing process, and the way of revising a piece of work until it seems like the best product. In short, revising

Throughout high school, I was regularly told that writing was not my strongest skill. My teachers would constantly “shoot down” my writing because it was never “good enough,” except I never understood what that truly meant. However, this class helped me realize that my writing has “potential for greatness,” but it just requires some more time, thought, and clarification.

Looking back in this class, I have realized just how much my writing has improved since the beginning

After looking back at all the writing I have accomplished in this class and experiences I have faced in other English classes, I realized how they have affected me as a writer and where I stand as one as of now. The writer I am today has been greatly benefited with years of learning English in school and other literacy sponsors. Throughout the years, I have learned a number of ways to write and I have been positively impacted by these methods. I now know the type of writer that I am and how I write best and in under which conditions. Now, I have my own writing process that most likely differs from my peers.

Have you ever had something in your life that has made you ask yourself, “What were you doing with your life before I came? Something that has unknowingly changed your life forever? That’s what writing has done to me. Writing has shaped me to become the person that I am today. I was not always as driven as I am today, but because of my errors in writing, I started to strive to be the best version of myself. I started writing my own stories when I was a freshman in High school; it was mid-February of 2010 and school was going to be over in a month. I was only twelve, and I had no background in writing novels whatsoever. All I knew was, I had tons and tons of ideas that I had to write on paper, and so I began writing. It was a sunny afternoon, you could hear the birds chirping, the wind whistling and the most prominent sound of all was the teacher’s voice echoing

Now that I have completed the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth course Crafting the Essay, I feel I have tremendously grown as a writer. Even after submitting the first assignment, I looked back at a position paper I wrote for school that I received an A+ on, yet I saw several flaws I wished I had changed.

In America, around twenty out of one hundred teenagers struggle with depression, and almost thirty percent will go untreated. J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye shines light on a young adolescent named Holden, calling awareness to his inner turmoil. Holden Caulfield might appear as the typical pessimistic teenager, however, he has a bad past that thrusts him into adulthood he never wanted. After the death of his little brother Allie, Holden fell into a dark hole and only keeps falling down further. Without any true role models, Holden is unequipped to handle his grief and refused to accept the past, depending on others for emotional support they are unable to give. Throughout the book, Holden's grapples with Allie’s death and searches for an eventual escape from his depression, causing him to grow as an individual. JD Salinger uses the symbol of rain to represent Holden's past, revealing that his journey through depression is rooted in his inability to move forward after Allie's death.

What concepts, principles, or ideas that you have learned, do you think you will remember the most after you leave this class?

The aim of the reflective essay is to highlight my own personal development skills that I have developed during first semester of my module. However, in this report I will make sure my learning ability phase and what this module has allowed me to work and understand in improving my personal skills and purpose. My major aim is to develop and assess an in depth range of my personal traits as a student in order to endorse my future development plan.