Reflection Of Reading And Writing

I sat in my fourth grade classroom staring at the bookshelf when suddenly I caught a glimpse of a dark blue book with a heroic being on the front. I lifted the heavy book and began reading Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief. As soon as I started I fell into this mythical world where gods, monsters, and heroes all existed. It was a rollercoaster through my emotions. The thrill. The suspense. The surprising new book had a grasp on me, to stop reading it would be difficult. I felt attached. As soon as I started, I finished. Devastated, my chase of this feeling has never stopped, no other book has given me the same fulfillment as Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief. As a young reader I would love to find the same joy and thrill (as I did back

Before this course started I didn’t believe I would become a better writer, but to a certain degree, I have. Since taking this course I have been able to grow and learn as a writer, editor, and creative. I have tried to improve particular aspects of my writing such as paying closer attention to my audience. I have learned writing skills and techniques from The Art of Rhetoric which I applied to my writings. In addition, an important and useful skill that I learned from this class was to start writing early. The next assignment was a working draft; it helped me write down all my thoughts and sources I had found and also determine if my focus was valid and in the right direction. After, having the working draft reviewed, the next drafts were

Writing has always been something I dread. It’s weird because I love talking and telling stories, but the moment I have to write it all down on paper, I become frantic. It’s almost as if a horse race just begun in my mind, with hundreds of horses, or words, running through my mind, unable to place them in chronological order. Because I struggle to form satisfying sentence structure, it takes me hours, sometimes even days, to write one paper. It’s not that I think I’m a “bad writer,” I just get discouraged easily. Needless to say, I don’t think highly of my writing skills. When I was little I loved to both read and write. I read just about any book I could get my hands on, and my journal was my go to for my daily adventures. Although it’s

Writing has become an intrigue part of education as students are routinely asked to demonstrate their knowledge through writing. Students will utilize their ability to write effectively throughout their school years and on into their careers. At the close of this semester, I now understand the terminology “writing across the curriculum”, and how I can implement it in my own classroom.

When I first received my classes for the fall semester of 2017, I noticed the class titled: Introductory College Writing. I instantly rolled my eyes and felt annoyed. Even though English as my favorite subject in high school, my favorite part of English was the reading aspect; I have always loathed the writing portion of English. My expectations in this class was I was going to write about a whole bunch of nonsense and hope to pass. But after participating in this course my expectations were thrown out the window. Reading became analyzing, writing became developing ideas and concepts, researching involved databases instead of google searches, and reflecting resulted in me thinking about what I truly did in a paper, essay, or project. By

Growing up I was never the best writer or reader. Every time I read a certain book for school, I tend to just read past the lines and not know what I just read. Some material would be interesting but never caught my attention to the point that attracted my interests. Writing was extremely difficult since it takes a lot of patience and exact wording that I need to use to make my essay come out clean. Plenty of ideas would come up when I am writing my paper, however I just don’t know how to get it all down on the piece of paper. My mind would go off tangent to think about the ideas that I wrote before on the paper and then I will try to include those ideas into my paper. This causes a negative flow throughout my essay and results of the

Reading and writing hasn’t always been something I’ve had a passion for. Growing up, I’ve never been able to sit there and let the words flow onto the paper without making a thousand mistakes along the way. Learning to write, I first had to become intimate with my subject and come up with as much information as possible. I will admit reading comes easier than writing does. For me to be interested in reading a book it has to catch my attention. I cannot remember how or when I learned to read and write, but I do know it isn’t something that comes easy. I have to be focused and willing to do what is necessary for me to master that skill. When I began high school, that is when it really became a priority to know how to read and write. High school is when I started to write all my major essays and research papers. I was taught to always prepare an outline and regulate it. My English teachers gave us various assignments about different topics, and we had to have a paper on it the next day or two. I would say when I entered the 10th grade that would be the year than I began to like writing a little bit more. Writing is one of the ways we interpret our thoughts to other people, thoughts that we really can’t express out loud but still want to express in some way. All my life, I was taught to put together words to form sentences and those sentences would form paragraphs; therefore, when entering high school, I was able to use those techniques to learn how to write more essays and

Prior to this English Composition course, writing papers had been the same consistent methods used throughout middle to high school which made my writing mediocre or average. This also stemmed from my overzealous confidence in my writing abilities, because the teachers I had prior had not interjected with comments of improvement, asides grammar mistakes. They did not prompted me to analyze further or not to use unnecessary “fluff”, in fact they wanted me to use “fluff”. The whole objective of a writing assignment was to fill the page requirements, it focused primarily on page numbers than the content within the essay. However, the method I use to write an essay through the guide, “How To Write a Paper” that has acted as a foundation for my gradual improvement. Professor Delloiacono did not hold back on constructive criticism that has molded by attitude towards any assignment, the underlying message of: to never be too satisfied because there are room for improvements. The constructive criticism has also pointed out two major flaws I had within my papers, the use of narration instead of analyzing/referencing the work, as well as my difficulties with forming a thesis and topic sentences due to lack of grasping/comprehending the text.

For many students, writing an essay is not their strong suit, and I was one such student until this year. In middle and high school, I dreaded writing essays mainly because I despised how we were forced to follow a strict format to develop our ideas. The universal structure that I was taught included an introduction, 3 to 5 body paragraphs, and a conclusion paragraph. Even within each paragraph, we had to adhere to follow a strict outline. The introductory paragraph had to be written with an attention getter as the first sentence, followed by introductory details on the topic and a thesis that outlined the subject of each body paragraph. Body paragraphs had to start with a topic sentence that described the focus of the paragraph while connecting it back to the thesis. After the topic sentence, claims and supports should follow. The conclusion should restate the thesis without copying it verbatim from the thesis; in addition, as you restate the thesis, you should include some of the details discussed in the body paragraphs. Finally, you end the conclusion by connecting the focus of the paper to something greater.

My experience in English 202 has been an interesting and informative one. Prior to taking this course, I thought that I knew what the English major was all about: reading and writing. Both of those things come easily to me, so I expected this class to be a piece of cake.

I thought about how I wanted to write this week’s reflection for a few days. This one is going to be different. My story begins at the end of the week. This week’s reflections are supposed to focus on syntax. I did not even know what that is so I had to look it up. After studying in depth, I understand that I should focus on making a well formed sentence. That doesn't seem to hard.

Reading and writing has always been one my strengths throughout high school. With every english course I’ve taken, there have been multiple writing assignments that are assigned with instructions different from the last. For example, coming from a regular english class with a standard curriculum to a college class that has very high expectations, was an extreme wake up call for me but I was ready for the challenge. Growing up with writing skills that seem reasonably natural, I have always been able to write an essay a day or two before the deadline. When I realized that taking composition meant longer papers and higher standards, I was forced to work more diligently on my papers and learn how to critique every error or attribute. The more essays I wrote during this course, the more it allowed me to obtain a better understanding of how important it is to plan or re-read my work in order to receive the grade I wanted. This semester, I overall altered my procrastination habits, improved upon my proofreading and editing skills which lead to knowing how to properly writing a five-paragraph essay.

How I learned to read was by my mother who would read Dr. Seuss books. I would listen to her read the books and look at the pictures to help me understand what she was saying to me. We kept working and working learning how to read before kindergarten. We would read about every night when she got off work to help me.

I found Fountas and Pinnell (2001) words so inspiring when they mention “we want literacy to become an integral part of students lives.” Reading and writing should occur often and children should present this need as a free-will. Literary usage should offer a wide range of materials, genres, audiences and the ability to self-reflect and think critically.

“You have to read 10 hours this week,” said my first grade teacher. In elementary school reading logs were what all the teachers made us do. Every week I had to read a certain amount of hours. I however, never read the amount of hours I was supposed to. I would just fill out the log and tell my mom to sign it. At that time it sounded like a good idea, but then came freshman year. Mrs. Daugherty changed my whole perspective on reading and how important it is to read.