Reflective Essay: My Writing As A Writer

This year has been a blast! There were so many things that just cried out me, and the projects were so much fun! I know I have grown as a writer by starting to have less and less edits on my paper. Making my blog helped me grow as a writer because it made me want to work harder. I wanted to work harder because I knew people would see my work. Sacred writing time has helped me grow as a writer because the time was helpful in the sense that I got some of my best ideas in just 5 minutes. Mrs. Lockwood has been a huge influence on my writing ability. Her instruction helped me grow by fixing my errors. I made many grammatical and punctual errors, that is, before I started no red ink. No red ink helped me to eliminate those errors. I usually don't

Ways that I grew as a writer is knowing information about the topic on that I am covering. Studying the information and taking key notes helped me to understand how to go along with it when writing. Formatting an outline helped me formulate the structure of my whole writing. I learned grammar practices and a paper should be formatted by going over certain mistakes I made from the past. Getting feedback from the instructor helped me see certain mistakes that I didn't see at first or didn't even know existed. Learning from past examples helped me become a better writer. Lots of practice also helped in me into become a better writer. I wasn't used to writing a lot on topics that was required to turn in; such as having homework that required a

Writing has been one of my favorite hobbies since I was in high school, so I used to spend many hours to writing in my daily journals in Vietnamese. However, when I came to America, I felt more difficult to write and express my thoughts in English because I did not know much vocabularies and lacking grammatical knowledge. Then, I decided to go back to school to improve my writing skills because I recognize the significance of writing in my everyday lives. As a college student, most of the writing assignments are reflections, journals, essays, and research papers. Working as a teacher aide in the preschool classroom, most of my writings are reports, observation, notes, and curriculum planning. At the beginning of the Academic Writing Seminar (AWS 100) when I wrote my first essay assignment, and I found out that writing essays in English were not easy. At the end of the semester, I realize I have learned valuable lessons while working seriously to write assignments for the AWS 100, so this class will be a step with deep preparation to help me successful in writing research papers at Pacific Oaks College. In this essay, I will also introduce the “best” of my writing, and share my experiences in the process of creating this portfolio.

Writing had always seemed so calculated. Since fourth grade I was taught that when you write a paper for school it should be a five paragraph essay with an opening paragraph, three supporting paragraphs, and then a closing paragraph. If you wrote in this exact format then you were sure to get a good grade. Up until college writing had always lacked creativity for me and seemed more like formula that was to be followed. Writing had always seemed dull to me and more like a chore rather than a chance to express or research ideas that I truly cared about. It was not until I was in my college writing classes that I began to realize that writing involves a lot more than just following a formula and that writing can be in all different forms with various purposes. College Writing I and II has expanded my knowledge on the different forms writing can come in, what are some of the process steps that can be taken, and that overall writing does not have to be a chore.

"Most of the time they like to listen to sad songs about love"(89). William plays his guitar and his girlfriend, Tiffany sits next to him leaning her head on his shoulder as she studies for her Geometry test. The sound carries and echoes through Mamiya. We may be on different sides of the building, but the memories of being on the same side linger. As people grow older and become romantically involved with others, they start to change their habits and don't pay attention to their old friends. Sometimes the old friend must accept that others have changed and move on to be happy.

I remember when I first had to write an essay for third grade. It was a piece of writing describing my experiences listening to a book, Charlotte’s Web. At the time, I was very young, so the teacher had to read it to the class. She then made us write our thoughts about the book. Back then, my idea of an essay was five sentences,

I found this paper extremely difficult to write. I had a hard time choosing the topic and once I did the sources I chose limited me on what I had to say. It was difficult to write much about a political cartoon and I wish I chose another source to compare to the magazine article. I had a hard time understanding the assignment fully as well. I now understand better how the project builders help us create the writing projects, so I think future assignments will be a lot easier for me to complete. Writing has always been something that I both dread and am not great at, so this class is more certainly going to be a challenge for me. My goals for the next writing project is to have better time management and write more drafts. No mater how many

For this essay, I used the traditional writing process as best I could. I use this process for almost all my essays, because it is the best way I know to write an essay effectively. First I had to decide what topic I wanted to write about since there wasn't a specific one given. After I found the topic I wanted to write about, I began with my pre-writing and the brainstorming process. I gathered all the information I could on the topic of religion causing war. I found some pretty good information on both topics but I was pretty sure which side I was leaning to, even before I started my research. After I gathered all of my information, I began focusing on which information I thought was best supportable by my own knowledge and which points had

As I continue through my development as a writer, I acquire more and more skills that can make my composition interesting, easy to follow, and strong in its presentation of an argument. In English 102 this semester, I was able to grow my skills, especially in terms of conducting and reporting research, citing that research, and having an organization that makes my writing easy to follow and presents my argument clearly and succinctly.

Have you ever wondered, “why do books make us feel the way we do?”, or “why are we so attached to the reading?” Well that's because when you are engaged in the book, it makes you realize many things about the book that you might like about it, and or relate to it. When choosing the book I wanted to write about, I had a choice between three books, “The giver”, “The Bible” , and lastly, “class matters”.  I ended up choosing , “The Giver” By Lois Lowry. The reasons that I didn't choose the other books is because, in class matters, it does relate to me, but I didn't really find it interesting enough to write about it. I didn't choose the bible due to religious reasons.  I made “The Giver” my official book because I felt as if the book and I

I never begin a paper without a plan. I am all about structure; I like to visualize the format of my paper before actually writing it. I go over the content and the distribution of the information and separate the topics into paragraphs in my mind. I need to be neat and organized so I try to be as straightforward as possible so that I do not write too much or too little. My head is like a filing cabinet, I put certain information into certain folders and those folders become paragraphs. As a visual learner, this is the creative process to my writing. I approach the paper with the desire and urgency to make it as neat and concise as possible.

Throughout this course, I discovered just how bad a writer I was. At the very beginning we had to introduce our selves. There was a small section in that paragraph where I mentioned that I hate writing essay. I mentioned that I’ve never been good at them and I rarely got good scores. However, I feel as though I have greatly improved my writing skills during this course. I’ve picked up several rules and have made the most out of this class. I am very proud of myself and the work I have put forth into this class in efforts of improving my essay writing skills.

I do not like writing, I do not like proofreading, and I most certainly do not like time consuming projects. Those were my thoughts at the beginning of the semester. I have never written about something that I truly care about, I did not realize the power of a voice. Writing and Argument has pushed me to find my voice as a writer and has showed me that there is more to a paper than the requirements.

In high school my view of writing was drastically influenced by my freshman year English teacher, Mr. Kelly. A tall, athletic man with short hair and a mean gaze. I liked to tell my parents and friends that he hated students, but realistically that was not entirely true. Mr. Kelly was a harsh, strict old-fashion style teacher who controlled his classes like a military officer controlled his troops. As Mr. Kelly stepped foot in the classroom, the room went utterly silent. As Mr. Kelly said good morning, my classmates and I responded in unison “good morning Mr. Kelly.” Just the thought of Mr. Kelly’s class could destroy any positive mood I was in. Additionally, writing essays for Mr. Kelly’s class was just as painful as sitting through one of his lectures. The essay topics were obscure and dull, and his grading was cruel and unforgiving. Although I went to an all-boys catholic school, Mr. Kelly was one of a kind, my other teachers were nowhere near as strict as him. However, my interest and enjoyment of writing did not increase as my time in high school progressed. For the next three years of high school, I did not enjoy writing a single essay. All of the topics were too academic and uninteresting for me to even reach a minimal level of enjoyment from writing them. Therefore,

I love writing, but I only enjoy it when I have a topic and know exactly what I'm going to write about. Writing does stress me out some days because I worry about the result and wonder if my paper is even good enough. However, it's a good outlet for me as well. It allows me to vent out my thoughts, feelings, and emotions. It also gives me a chance to let my imagination and creativity flow since I don't get to do that on a daily basis or sometimes even a weekly basis.