Reflective Essay: My Response To A Regulatory Agency

At first I was not sure what I should put, but then when I starting thinking about it, it came pretty easily. However I did have a difficult time thinking about what I can’t change because I try not to focus on that.

In Dan Berrett’s article “Students Come to College Thinking They’ve Mastered Writing”, published in the Chronicle of Higher Education on March 21, 2014, the author describes some issues regarding writing that first-year students face. Berrett claims that “the students’ notions about writing” do not meet their instructors’ expectations. I, as a freshman in university, agree with most of the author’s ideas. However, there are flaws in the article, which make it less convincing.

I enjoyed that the class discussed a topic to an extent, which allowed me to research and learn the material on my own. It is not that I did not learn anything in the class, it is that the class was able to give me the push that a baby bird needs to learn how to fly. Through this method, I have succeeded the best way compared to other methods. I enjoy this approach because it allows me to make a decision for myself. I always have thought that in life, if an individual genuinely wants something realistically, they would give it their all to achieve their goals. If an individual puts themselves down by telling themselves that they are not capable of accomplishing their goal, they will never able to complete them. Therefore, the ones who truly desires something and invests time and effort, that individual will have the desired substance. I found that the class had a similar feeling to this because I was given a choice, and I loved it. Through these boundless choices, I was able to fully disclose my ability to write. I found that the less I had to restrict what I could write, I put less effort into it and I had a worser quality of writing.

In Dan Berrett’s article, “Students Come to College Thinking They’ve Mastered Writing,” the idea of freshman thinking they are or must be a refined writer is discussed. Students may think this way coming into college, but their teachers do not. While students might feel satisfied and think that they are prepared with their writing skills, professors found that these students did not necessarily meet the expected level (Berrett 1). Many students reported that they would normally write around 25 hours every week. They said that most of those hours of writing was for more formal purposes like passages to make changes in society (Berrett 1). It was found that one reason the new students might feel this way is that their assumptions about writing differed greatly from those of faculty members and their expectations. One big thing that students will not get for a while, is that good writing is not just listed as a bunch of steps one is to follow that automatically make one’s writing good. Good writing requires one to be in different mental states; it requires the understanding of how to write for different audiences and different reasons (Berrett 2). Berrett includes in the article that writing is not just universal and that in order to do very well, writers must use different forms of writing specifically for their purpose (2). It seems as though students think that, before they even take a class, they are supposed to know everything about writing; in reality, they are supposed to learn new skills and enhance others (Berrett 2). Berrett says that many believe the schools these students previously attended with their test focus might cause these feelings about writing (2). Berrett ends his article by saying that students these days do not think that informal writing actually counts as writing, and that students should practice writing for informal purposes because it can help them (2). Even if they feel like it, students are not fully prepared to write in all contexts when they arrive at college.

I feel like most teachers worry more about grades and getting the writing done as soon as possible and not taking their time in helping students gain better writing skills and improve themselves. Students should be able to choose what they want to write about so that we can feel inspired in our writings thus having a better end product for teachers to read and be satisfied with. If teachers are constantly criticizing our writings and telling us what to write about then they never really know what a student’s potential really is because most likely they will rush to try to satisfy the teachers needs than theirs. I also agree that teachers should worry more about a person’s writing than about the mechanics of a paper, however; I also realize that in today’s society free writing isn’t really “approved” in almost every class. In every English class I have had my teachers focused more about the end result that is timing us on essays, and grading our papers based off grammar/mechanics and not the process writing

Murray is insightful not only to instructors but also to learners. Murray argues that the challenge facing writing is the fact that teachers have treated it as a product rather than a process and the same concept passed on to students. The author holds that the main problem with this view is that students get to receive irrelevant criticisms that are not related to their learning goals. While I tend to agree with the author based on the arguments presented, it is notable that Murray has paid little attention to the idea of education in the contemporary world. In most learning institutions, the outcome of the writing is considered more than the process. As a teacher paying attention to the process of writing but not be consistent with the students, who are mostly driven by

I have also operated as part of a team, for example AUQA audits, scholarship allocations, and large IT projects. Having spent most of my career working in schools and faculties I am well versed in dealing with students, general and academic staff and central units. These include timetabling, graduation, prizes and scholarships, and student and academic administration. I have also provided support to academic staff as required, for example in invigilating assessment items (including online assessment), developing course and subject proposals, reviewing Turn It In reports for potential plagiarism, and enabling advanced Blackboard

Additionally, this chapter identifies some fears that college students may face when taking writing classes, especially at the time of working on an essay. Most of the time, these terrors are the product of non-factual or misleading beliefs from students that have not taken a writing class yet, however, it plays an important decision making when enrolling to take writing classes.

In the beginning of this class I looked at writing as a chore. The word “writing” drummed up a vision of a thin man sitting at a cafe with wire rimmed glasses and a goatee. He was wearing dress pants that are too short and crisply creased with a matching vest. He sipped his coffee with his pinky finger curled and was completely lost to the world around him as he typed quickly then paused to read his work. He was born to write and highly organized; a perfectionist. He was all the things I thought I was unable to be, until now.

I did not have a firm writing philosophy before this semester, but I to some degree I understood the importance writing can have on a situation. Now I understand that writing has two outcomes: gaining support or losing support. When writing an essay it is best if the writing is as specific as possible. This way the audience is hopefully not left with a confused opinion about the topic. Since the beginning of the semester I have put a conscious effort to change my writing style. Instead of the box format that is learned in high school I try to use a more graceful approach while still being organized. Also, I evaluate the credibility of a source before I use the information to support my thesis and understand the roles of using ethos,

Writing this class is really a challenge for me.I never thought I would spend so much time writing.This is something I've never had before.However, I will turn the impossible into a possibility in this semester, and I believe I can do it.Because there is a good saying that you don't try to see how you know you can't do it.It is true that I will complete my challenge in this semester and keep moving towards my goal.In the future, my goal is to be a good salesman, and this skill is absolutely indispensable.To convince a person, you have to present your own points of interest and strong empirical evidence that you are right.Writing this class is the best way to strengthen this skill.I want to talk about how I grew up in writing and how much skill I learned.I'm going to tell you what I have encountered in writing and what challenges I have and how I overcame him.There are three challenges that I find difficult.At the beginning, the Internet quotes a strong and powerful argument to support my article with the use of grammar and paragraph architecture.

In the article “A Stranger in Strange Lands” Lucille Parkinson McCarthy, who is from Loyola College Maryland did a 21 month study on a college student’s (Dave) writing process. Lucille followed the student one class per semester of freshman and sophomore years to observe how students navigate different writing rules in different contexts and apply the rules to their writing. Lucille believes that both explicitly stated instructions and unarticulated social aspects of the class affect the student’s success. As Lucille writes: “Successful students are those who can, in their interactions with teachers during the semester, determine what constitutes appropriate texts in each classroom”. She emphasizes that being able to understand those social

Writing is so much easier when you don’t have a ridiculous amount of guidelines you have to follow. With literary freedom, we are able to express ourselves more than if we have to follow a specific set of rules for every thing we write. This is one downfall for high school English. We have to order our papers in a specific sequence while writing about a topic that is chosen for us. This English composition class changed all of that. We were able to write about anything that related to the given type of essay, which greatly improved our ability to fully immerse ourselves into every paper. This greatly affected my writing thoughts about writing; they changed from hating to write for school to actually enjoying it because I was able to

The raspy wind rises in swirls, encircling the entirety of my lean body. The parched, coarse sand scrapes across my angular face, burying and scraping itself into the warmth of fresh, open wounds. The sun scorches my skin raw, condemning the violence, the blood, and the screams that seem to echo all throughout the lifeless mountain side. Welcome to Afghanistan. Bitter laughter fills my head.

“Dare to be wise,” echoed my future principal’s voice through an auditorium filled with hundreds of apprehensive eleven year olds and their parents. We were at the information night for a magnet school called Federal Way Public Academy, of which it's main reputations were of it giving students two-to-three hours of homework each night and having no P.E. or music classes. Before hearing that motto, I had little desire to make the sacrifice to go to Federal Way Public Academy.