I want to start off by giving a bit of my writing background because there isn’t one. I took this class because I wanted to step outside of my comfort zone, which I did. I have never written anything worth submitting for a grade, but I figured this class would be a good place to start. Reflecting back on where I began, and where I am now, there is a huge difference. I now find myself thinking of themes and ideas to write about. I do not have a good understanding of how well I write, or what is interesting to other people. However, I do think that this experience has helped me better understand myself. In my opinion, my works all start out being ideas that somehow have a personal connection to me. The theme of abundant potential in the tree poem, the overcoming of mental obstacles in my short story, and of course, my personal experience with my father. My short story was actually written about my mom, as I had not actually heard of the Black Swan movie until my small group read my story. I find all of my works to be about turning something negative into a positive. Maybe that is not something that can be understood by other people, but I feel that find myself in each of my works. I tend to write in short chunks. I was once told by a professor that “short paragraphs are more pleasing to the reader.” Whether this is true or not, I tend to stray away from long, boring paragraphs. Either way, I find that my drafts are quite concise, and during my revision process, I learned the importance of extending into detail. I also find a bit of humor in my poetry drafts. For example, the last line in the original draft of “The Living Tree” was quite ironic to me, and I found that it made me laugh. I also do not use big words. I stick with short sentences. In a way, I think that it hinders what I can do as a writer, and I hope to overcome that in the future. My writing process is choppy and unorganized, which is interesting because I am quite OCD about everything else I do in my life. I never set aside time to write; I write when I feel like it. Sometimes, it might be days before I return to a work that I have started. As I said before, this is something that I have recently learned about myself because I have never been
Throughout this course, I was able to assess and evaluate my weaknesses and strengths in writing. This class has truly brought out my ability to write, a skill I did not believe I had. I now know what it takes to become a college-level writer. Also, at the beginning of the course I did not particularly enjoy writing. Now, however, I have a greater respect for
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
However, most of the time I will despise writing and try to avoid it as much as possible. The reason I do not like writing is, because I frequently have so much to say and I cannot grasp a way to organize everything. When I write for enjoyment I will mainly write about the thoughts in my head and nonchalantly caring if it makes sense or not. It’s like the difference between a doodle and a drawing. A doodle is just a “whatever” picture. It is just randomly drawn and it won’t matter if the lines are straight or not. In a drawing everything has to be perfect and neat. I enjoy to “doodle” write and just write my thoughts out about anything, I am afraid to publicly say. I’ve been taught to write by having teachers just tell me what they want me to write. The part about me learning to write I kind of have taught myself using some of the knowledge that previous teachers have given me. Not only, but I also, face several challenges as a writer like the lack of creativity and writing descriptively. When I write, I like to just state my point or main idea, but I struggle with describing it in depth and explaining my main idea as specific as possible. Some writers make a drama and explain everything so clearly and their emotions, however I am not that type of
At the start of this course, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had a goal for myself to improve and learn skills that would make writing less daunting for me. I have learned so many things about my writing that I didn’t think much about before. Another goal I had was to break the cookie-cutter mold that was set upon me throughout high school. During the process of revision, I discovered many things about myself as a writer and techniques that have been effective for me in the writing process.
I see myself as a creative person and one of the ways to express my creativity in the past has been through my writing. Most of my experience with writing has been enjoyable, which led to all my writing assignments for school to be tolerable. I not only see higher level writing as a chance to pass a class and get a good grade, but I also see how it leads me to better express my interests and points of view on whatever I choose to write about.
From day one I knew I would face some challenges with this class just bases off of past experiences with English classes overall. Not being a native speaker and having dyslexia have been two big hurdles but I can say this class has made me over all a more knowledgeable writer. Each assignment given was something different and something interesting. The one that left the biggest impact on me was the Sister Flowers story by Maya Angelou. I’ve always been a fan of her work and the fact that I got to read something by her in my English class was amazing. Most of the classes I’ve attended have been very euro centric barely deviating from that path but here there was plenty of variety from the racial backgrounds of the authors to the topics themselves. My strengths as a writer have always been in the passion I can channel into my writing. That skill really came to birth as a way to balance out my lack of proper grammar with sheer emotional impact. An example of this I believe was in my essay entitled Glossy “I felt the rage tinged with fear claw at my stomach and wrap around my neck constricting my breathing.” Although my English may not be the best I’ve found ways to convey certain emotions. Although I have some strengths naturally I have weaknesses as well.
My writing process is simple, extreme procrastination, free writing and then aligning the paragraphs that may make sense together. When I write I mainly just read over the prompt and just type until something happens I often write two or three different passages on the same topic and take whichever bits and pieces that seem good, that is not the best way because sometimes I confuse myself and when reading through will read what I wrote as if it was still in its unedited condition. Most of the time I will wait until the day before to start writing especially if the topic is something dumb like “write about your writing experiences”
Attitude: Writing has never been my thing, at least when it comes to essays and research papers. It can take me awhile to get my ideas flowing. I’m very excited to complete this course so I can become a better writer. Although I often don’t like writing research papers or essays, I don’t feel that any personal feelings towards writing will have any negative effects on my quality of work. I’m looking forward to what this course has to teach me.
When it's a story I have to tell I write out a plot tree telling what's going to happen in each paragraph just to plan it out. After writing that out I do a rough draft and re-read it a couple of times to make sure my paper is going in the right direction. Overall my writing process hasn't really changed since I first started writing stories when I was about 10 and got praise for them from elementary and middle school teachers. College is definitely different and the expectation of essays is different as well when it comes to word play and the layout of what you're writing about. But thankfully that should be the only two I really have to work on, otherwise my thinking process has always worked really well and kept me on
I have been practicing on how to improve my writing over the past few weeks, which has taught me a great deal about writing. My teacher would like me to evaluate and explain my strengths and weaknesses in my own writing. This evaluation is in between my two essays. One on my own and another with my teacher's help. I have strengths and weakness in my introduction, body paragraphs ,and my conclusion.
My experience in writing is rather slim, and primarily for the sole purpose of communicating with fellow colleagues and clients for business needs. Conversely, I have been commended for my writing skills. Prior to college, I never analyzed my writing process, I just did what came natural. Nevertheless, I believe my process begins by jotting down my thoughts, with no rhyme or reason; I lay them out, then begin fitting them together like puzzle pieces of a complete message. I rewrite my paragraphs accordingly, so my message flows flawlessly. Writing, as in responding to emails, comes rather easily to me; with content of familiarity. I purposefully clean up my writings for grammar, spelling, the removal of filler words, and to place transitional
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.
Writing is way that we can express ourselves, it is a way to interface ideas and thoughts and to prove a point. Throughout my writing experience or process I have struggled with writing especially using details or really expressing myself my work. In this course Facts & Fiction: Portraits in World Art I expect to gain more knowledge on how to write a perfect essay, story, letter, and assignment. I expect to learn new genres and rhetorical situations. I also think my writing will improve academically and I will develop my skills in writing. Also taking my writing to a different point of view, level, and writing something different rather than the usual. I look forward to getting feedback from my peers and learning their thoughts on my writing and how they can help me improve.
I have a love-hate relationship with writing. One of the many reason I hate writing is because I worry so much about my punctuation. I could be writing an amazing paper, but when I go back and find a thousand punctuation errors, I try to switch up the writing to make it flow more. When the topic is relatable I excel in the assignment, but if it is not relatable it takes me some time to start or find a connection I can use as a building block. One of the many things I love about writing is the freedom to express my ideas without feeling self-conscious. For example, I love writing spoken word poems, but finding the courage to actually say them aloud in front of an audience scares me a bit. Another negative for me is that I have difficulty expounding on simple topics that the teacher wants me to write more on. I could write a few sort sentences and answer the
It is my belief that through this class and the tools provided, that my growth as a writer has grown through leaps and bounds I would never have assumed possible. It is not so much the skill I refer to, although I would think skill has gone up in some levels as well, but more so the appreciation for the craft of writing itself. Intially, at the start of this class my sole goal was to further my understanding and appreciation of the writer's and books that I so love to read. Through further evaluation within the first week, a few other goals came to mind, of which were, making writing a habit, finishing what I start, stop second guess my writing skills and making effective use of detail and description. Through the use of the many articles, various reading materials, whether poems or short stories, and especially through the workshop, I feel I was able to really push myself to accomplishing these goals. I have thus far learned how important it is not to be skilled at writing per say, but to have the will to write, that poetry is as much about it's sound as it is about it's subject, just how important character development is, how the narration and point of view of a story is essential to the way the story is told, and just how much of a difference peer's critiques can make to your writing.