Reflective Essay: Ap Language And Composition

The Norton Field Guide to Writing covers topics about writing and composing. Several of which I was already familiar with. In chapter 2, Bullock and Weinberg express how “Many readers find it helps to annotate as they read…” (16). I have become very familiar with annotating over the years. I often use this writing method to help me understand and summarize text I come across.

I decided to take AP Language and Composition due to the requirements of the University of Iowa. For my intended major, I need two rhetoric classes and one literature class. Last year I completed the literature class which improved my reading ability tremendously. After completing ENG 105, I have improved in multiple areas, but I am most proud of my improvement on the writing volume and stamina as I now have the ability to write college level essays. When examining all of the competencies, I have not mastered any one of them, but have improved in multiple categories throughout the semester.

After the first draft, one of the most important areas that I needed to improve was the analysis and finding better evidences for my point that I have made in my essay. The reason I had to go through struggle finding evidences in my first draft was because my thesis was not clear which made it hard to show my point in it. After the first draft, I was able to find some convenient sources that are related to my topic which helped me to support my point and made me have a better analysis on those points. However, I believe my analysis is somewhat effective as it should be according to the rubric after my final draft has been done, but there are still some places in the essay where I feel like it can still be improved. I tried my best to improve it as best as I can to make it clear to the audience by expanding more on it by giving more detailed about the points that I have made in the essay. However, I definitely learned how making my analysis more specific helped me a lot to make my essay clearer than being vague and general. After reviewing my Rhetorical Analysis, I definitely learned how doing a better research on my topic makes my argument

Writing a captivating introduction is something I am trying to be proficient in. My instructor pointed out that I have established a clear introduction and thesis statement that laid out my purpose to the reader. That was my main objective while writing the essay 2, to be able to convey my message concisely. I am glad I did achieve that goal. My professor also, indicated that I supported the argument distinctly and effectively with my outside source in the body paragraph of my essay. Even though, I have good information and presentation in my piece, I still have area to improve.

An essay is a great way to express your knowledge in a topic and also learn new skills involving reading and writing. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses when it comes to writing. To turn those weaknesses into strengths, I have practiced my writing and took the advice given by my peers and professor. Throughout this course, I have overcome many of my writing weaknesses such as citations, thesis statements, and transitions. Although there are still skills to improve upon, I have improved these skills by taking my time with each essay, proofreading them thoroughly, and reflecting on my work when finished.

Growing up, my sister and I would each write birthday cards to our mother, as our method of showing gratitude. My sister, now an author, would repeatedly bring my mother to tears after reading her birthday card, yet I would only receive a “Oh, that’s very nice Ryan.” Living in the shadow of my sister the writing behemoth being a math and science oriented person tainted my views on writing. I may not have put the necessary effort into becoming a better writer because I figured it was just an innate quality. In other words, I basically accepted that I was born left brained, and there was no realistic chance to drastically improve my writing. Consequently, I opted out of taking challenging AP English courses and instead breezed through my high

When imagining how I would survive AP Language and Composition, I also took into consideration how I could absorb tips for strengthening my writing skills. From the start of my eleventh-grade year up to now, I believe I have begun my process of improvement. Writing is a skill that I enjoy due to the freedom of expressions one can play with. In most of my past writings over the years, I have earned high scores, and I have felt confident in my persona and how I go about expressing my writing skills. Before all the lectures and writing practices this year, though, I would simply regurgitate the prompt into my essays, and I would elaborate on that simple, broad idea. Apparently in the past I did this in an appropriate manner, for I never ran

I need to state the literary devices in the first paragraph and not miss it. I also need to cite the texts properly. In addition to these errors, there were many parts where I had bad word choice. I only write the words down because that’s what I think fits at that moment and I do not re-read the sentence again to see if the word fits or not. This is why I had a couple problems in terms of word choice. There were also avoidable mistakes like spelling and missing literary device in the opening sentence. If I had avoided these mistakes I could have avoided the drop in my mark. Correspondingly, a big problem with form of writing was that I could not explain a lot of my points and if I cannot do that, then my essay will have weak evidence. This will simply make my essay weak overall since the point of an essay is to provide as much explanation as you can. I also have to see if the pieces of evidences that I am providing are relevant to the point that I am trying to prove, because there is no point in providing information that does not even prove the point. By doing this, there will just be extra writing. Similarly, for spelling errors, next time I should just cross out the misspelled word instead of leaving it which will just result in a lowered mark. Overall many of these mistakes could have been easily avoided by just reading over the essay and carefully looking out for any mistakes or bad word choice.

I have taken two AP classes throughout my high school career: US History sophomore year and American Government junior year. These classes have expanded my skill set to include a vast knowledge of interpreting passages that has translated into an advanced concept of comprehension in my other coursework. Even though these classes were not my favorite, the struggle I faced redefined my character as a student; the challenges caused me to work harder in order to succeed, and to me, that is an invaluable lesson that I could have learned nowhere else.

a) Hannah is a friendly and approachable teacher. She creates a positive atmosphere that makes us feel comfortable when answering questions. The start of her lesson are engaging and we enjoy the topics that she covers during her lessons. However, she sometimes goes too slowly when giving feedback or when she is teaching grammar, she will spend a long time at the board which can sometimes get boring. But the speaking tasks at the end of her lessons allow us to practise the new language and to discuss interesting topics that have been covered during the lesson.

Being a high school student while taking two college English composition classes has been anything but effortless. Essay after essay and something is almost always due the day of class. The assignments are never worksheets that take little to no thought or quick reads in a text book. No, what happens in English 111 and English 112 is the gaining of rhetorical knowledge, mastering the process in developing an academic essay, and plenty of critical thinking.

During my junior year, I was took a mock AP test for English. After i received my results on my writing portion, I was really surprised. The score I got on the test was a 3, but my writing score was a 2. Writing is what i considered my best part in English, so i was really shocked. My English teacher said the paper lacked creativity. She stated that I should brainstorm before my papers and this will allow me to come up with better plan for my papers. That comment really hurt me because I felt like I let her down. But I was determined to fix my mistake. For the next paper I wrote, I began to jot downs ideas and concepts for my paper before I started writing. This gave me a plan and allowed me to become creative because of the multiple ideas.

When I entered your classroom on the first day of school this year, I was confident that what I had learned in previous years was sufficient enough to call myself an experienced and competent writer. However, I discovered throughout the semester that this confidence hindered my ability to improve in the beginning. The first few days of analyzing essays and literary works was something I had never experienced before, opening up my eyes to a side of literature and the English language that I previously did not pay any attention to. After we finished writing our very first in-class essay, I was extremely surprised to see that the score I earned was a 6. But when I look back on that very first essay, I am even more surprised to see what I could improve using the knowledge and strategies I learned in AP Junior English.

Since beginning to write papers in English class, I have had countless successes and failures. While many of my English classes have taught me how to improve my writing, I have not learned very much in others. My most recent English class was last year, my sophomore year. My class was particularly undersized; therefore, it gave each student the opportunity to have additional individual attention. Throughout the class I experienced high points, weaknesses, and even difficulties that I never overcame. Overall, my writing skills improved, but only marginally.

Hello, I am Clara Smith and next semester I will be a Sophomore at APU, majoring in acting. I am interested in this course because I think that the human mind is fascinating and I would like to learn about how it is studied. I chose APU because it is a Christian school and it has a wonderful