Reflective Essay Of My Writing

Writing 101 has been a tremendous learning experience for me. It is not my strongest area, so it is my primary reason for taking the class. I took this Writing 101 class to improve my writing skills. In college courses, I have to do a tremendous amount of writing. Writing is also not my favorite thing to do, because it takes time, thought and research. The first week of class, we had to write the first assignment draft. I thought this class will be hard for me and difficult to keep up with the assignments. I disagree with my initial thought. The class definitely challenged me, but I learned so much. My expectation was to improve my writing skills. I would say I met that expectation. However, I feel that I need to continue to learn and perfect my writing to become even more proficient. I learned how to develop strong thesis statements, to conduct online library searches. I started WRTG 101 with a basic knowledge of the writing skills; now I know how to accurately use punctuations, I know how to develop unified, consistent and well-supported paragraphs, and I know my weaknesses in my writing.

My writing skills have fluctuated throughout the semester. I feel, although, I have mastered leads and headline writing. Leads and headlines were the first writing skills we practiced and have continued to practice throughout the entire semester. The continuous practice of leads and headline writing throughout the semester, I feel confident in my ability to write concise, eye-catching leads and headlines. For writing assignment three I needed to provide a follow-up headline and corresponding lead for a criminal case. The headline had to focus on the upcoming sentencing hearing because it was the newest information about the case. In order to do so, as I mention in my blog entry, I had to write several drafts for both my headline and lead. [INSERT BLOG PICTURE] After many drafts of the lead I settled on a summary-lead because the article was a follow-up story about an established criminal case. I wrote the headline after I wrote the lead because the headline had to be a shorter, more intriguing version of the lead. After many drafts I finally wrote a six worded, eye-catching headline that was about the sentencing hearing. [INSERT WRITING ASSIGNMENT

Coming into this class, I wasn't sure what to expect. Of course,I expected to be writing a lot but was unsure of the type of writing and the style. I was looking forward to writing challenging pieces that stretching me creatively as a writer. I wanted to explore how to express myself in my writing because it had been a long time since I'd written a creative essay. One of my main hopes for this class was challenging myself to become a better editor of my own papers. I often find it a tedious and laborious process to find and edit the grammatical errors in my papers. However, this is an important skill that I need to develop for my future as a successful writer.

Writing is one of the most important skills that I have learned throughout my years in school. I have learned that no matter how much I love or hate it, writing is a necessity; I might as well try to be good at it. Writing has been in my life for many years. There are many types of writing, educational writing and personal writing are two that I will mention in this essay. I have learned how to allow writing to help me in my daily life. When I began writing I hated it, however, I have learned the many uses of it, and it has become a huge part of my life.

America is a place full of immigrants with no single ethnicity or race. America can also be referred to as the ?Melting Pot? because it consists ingredients of multicultural backgrounds. There are cultures such as French American, Asian American, Italian American and African American. I am Mexican American. My culture has helped me to become the writer I am today. My bicultural background and constant moving back and forth from Mexico to America has both influenced and weakened my writing. Although I was born in America, my Mexican culture has always been a part of my life. I have spent the majority of my life in Mexico, and Spanish is my first

From this course, some of the most important ideas and concepts I have learned about writing in various disciplines is how to effectively interact with my peers during discussion in online posts and in person using “They Say/I Say” techniques, create literature reviews on current academic topics, and make a memo and proposal. I believe that my style of writing has improved and broadened over the semester in terms of citing information in both MLA and APA style, critically analyzing literature and academic articles, and positively critiquing and collaborating with other students on their work as well as mine. I believe that I still need to practice and work on literary analyses; at times I would find myself struggling to develop a narrow and specific thesis and generate the rest of my analysis from it.

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.

“As a student, I write for multiple purposes. Purpose is the key for how my thoughts are dictated on this blank white sheet.” After writing this in my in-class journal discussing my transition from five-paragraph writing to actual formation of thoughts without a specific format, I realized that this process was a larger undertaking than I originally thought. Through endless amounts of essay writing the personal academic improvements that have taken place this quarter are indescribable in comparison to any other academic feat made in my brief but fulfilling college career.

Graduate school and any other school requires students to write. Prior to applying to school I knew I would have to do just that, write and write a lot. What I did not think about was what type of writing style do I have and whether it will make or break my success in graduate school. I have not been in school for a while, to be exact it’s been about four years. Since I graduated undergrad in psychology my writing skills have shifted from academically to professional writing.

My two favorite writing styles we covered was Illustrative and sensory. I enjoyed showing the reader the event instead of just telling the story. These two writing styles got me out of my comfort zone of research writing and allowed me to explore the more creative side to my writing. It gave me the ability to paint the scene as though it was a picture instead of hitting the highpoints and shortly explaining what happened. I enjoyed the results of both papers and though it was difficult, adding vivid details of all the senses involved into my writing.

Prior to the start of the ENG-122 course, if a co-worker had read something that I had wrote and told me that they didn’t understand what I was trying to say, I would have thought that they were just giving me a hard time or just being picky. I would have said to myself, “I don’t have time for this” or, “what do they not understand?” I didn’t realize that I didn’t provide enough detailed information and that my writing was not clear. Whenever I write something, I can now see when my sentences don’t flow or if my paragraphs do not transition well. Sometimes I find myself moving sentences around so that it makes more sense.

When rereading my major paper one, I noticed a few issues but also a few improvements. My writing had improved from exercise one tremendously, I managed to really focus on making this paper an informational paper whereas in my other writing I struggled with putting my opinion in. My writing also improved in the grammatical sense I noticed fewer comma splices and run on sentences. My paper had taken on a professional tone, that my previous writing lacked. Areas my writing could still use some improvement though is in introducing quotations, when reviewing back through my paper I noticed many of the quotations were awkwardly placed or just not introduced correctly. My writing could also see improvement in avoiding the repetition of certain

During this course I have experienced struggles, trials and most importantly, the relief of accomplishment, especially after writing the argumentative essay. I didn’t realize I could actually even write a paper that long without straining for words. This course has taught me how to look deeper at issues and to express myself more through

Over the eighth grade year, I have learned to effectively use feedback and reflection skills to strengthen my writing. These writing processes taught me to include peer and teacher feedback along with self-reflection to earn a better grade on my writing pieces. In the beginning of the year, I would simply complete the drafts my teacher assigned. Proof of my original writing process is shown in the essay, titled One Necessity of a Hero: Personal Sacrifice, in which it reflects on the Thematic Unit. To demonstrate my poor writing process, a segment of my original introduction stated, “After analyzing documents from The Hobbit Thematic Unit, I discovered that the principles of heroism involve personal sacrifice. I also learned that a hero is

Throughout this semester, I have grown enormously as a writer, thinker, and person. At the beginning of this semester I was a meek and simplistic writer. However, I now make a conscious attempt to be as exquisite and detailed as possible. Now, after much practice, I am much more sanguine in my abilities and adeptness. This growth I have experienced has been a significant improvement of my writing, as well as artistic, abilities in a way that words can not quite accurately describe. The wide range of pieces we have written have rounded out my ability as a thinker and writer as well as opened my eyes to the many forms of writing available to express synonymous content.