Sample Writing : Writing Experience Essay

Sometimes, writing can be harder than one expects - C'est la vie! Coming into Rockhurst as a graduate of Académie Lafayette isn't the easiest thing for a student, especially in English class. Académie Lafayette (AL) is a French immersion school where classes are taught entirely in French, except for English class (of course). So, after graduating from AL, I had little experience with English and, as a result, I knew it would be one of my weaknesses.

When I was in fifth grade, I always believed I was not a writer. Math and science I understood decently but when it came to writing I was blank. For my fifth grade star test, I barely passed with a three on the writing portions and I always found telling stories on paper as dull and annoying in a way. I could never get what I was thinking into my paper, it always got lost somehow in the translation to thought and left me unsatisfied with what I wrote.

I learn best by being relaxed and concentrated in my work/jobs. I certainly learn by writing things down because it helps me memorize things in a better way and it can serve to me as a study guide as a future which helps me learn. Learning by just listing and without writing is difficult for me because I can capture that much information in my brain without writing it down it just doesn't save in my memory. In contrary if there are talking and they have a PowerPoint slide or they have something projected related to the topic then that would help me grasp that concept better and later excel in that area. For me writing things down and seeing things in slides is a better way for me to learn because it helps me obtain knowledge of the concept

When writing, I try to gather as much information about the topic, I am getting ready to discuss before I start writing. What that does is it helps me get organized and have a greater understanding about what I will be writing. Not only do I try to gather as much information, I also try to organize myself and my writing by starting an outline to help me stay on topic. As a writer, I am not always as confident as I wish to be. Some improvements I hope to gather from taking this class is being able to keep my writing flowing and sounding efficient. When writing has positive flow and understanding, people are more likely to stay engaged in what they are reading. Transition words, phrases, and sentences is also something I would like to improve.

As a reader and writer I have had plenty of courses that made me write essays and research papers, however not as much to read. Writing was always stressed upon in my high school so we tended to write a lot. Reading was also stressed upon, but not as heavy as writing so we didn’t do nearly as much reading as we did writing. The last most intensive writing and reading course I took was my sophomore year theology class.

When I started to work at the Writing Center, I had about eleven years of experience in tutoring English as a foreign language to non-native English speakers in Germany. The experience I had gained from that proved to be very helpful.

Before taking this class I never liked my English classes more specifically writing essays for them. I didn’t understand much of how to use strategies while writing essays and focuses little on learning it. By taking this class and using the strategies that I was provided with it made taking this class easy and enjoyable while writing analytical essays. I was willing to put in the effort and do my part in order to get a good grade in this English class and it worked. I feel that my performance in an English class has improved significantly.

This course has helped me enhance my writing abilities and display the rhetorical purpose of my essays. Coming from Lebanon, this course has definitely been a challenge, yet I believe I have learned a great deal this semester. This course encouraged me to engage in ideas of my own that I discovered throughout my writings. The articles I have read challenged me intellectually allowing me to view a writer’s perspective on a specific topic. The engagement with my classmates and the feedback given during this class gave me the opportunity to extend my thinking abilities. The two main techniques that I have learned this semester is; identifying the purpose of my writing, integrating evidence from my articles and supporting my statements.

From an early age I have been passionate about reading. Like seriously, when I was five years old I was upset that I didn’t get the newest Little Mermaid book for Christmas. However, I have never had an interest in writing. Unfortunately, as I plan to go to graduate school to obtain my Ph.D, I really cannot avoid it. Over the years, my lack of enthusiasm about writing has caused me to view most English classes as a chore, something I needed to do in order to advance to what I really wanted to do with my life. With the risk of sounding like a suck-up, this is one of the first English classes I have valued because I have felt like I improved some aspect of my writing in each essay.

Of all the writing experience I gained through an AP heavy course load in high school, I look towards the experience I gained in one class more than anything else when it comes to the development of my reading and writing skills as a student and learner. This class was known locally in my high school as Honors Issues in Religions, taught by Mr. Burnett. The reason this class has held such an impact on me is because we were able to develop both reading and writing in a variety of ways, whether it was doing the nightly textbook reading, writing 4 essays in 90 minutes in what is known as a test in the class, the 15 page minimum research paper due at the end of the year, or even the book review done on a book of the student’s choice. All of these different aspects were able to help myself improve my skills as both a reader and writer.

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.

It was a miracle that i got through that those essays and the class. My sophomore year came around and so did english 2, i was prepared to dread that class more than anything else. I remember feeling uneasy when getting an introduction to the first written assignment. It was noticeable that the teacher was motivated to get familiar with a new type of outline the english department had came up with since it seemed like the one before was of no support to us students. The outline seemed bearable at first glanced but at the back of my head, the question of “how do i put my thoughts into words” still remained a mystery. I was aware that for my writing to improve, my way of organizing my thoughts in words had to improve too. The teacher used the outline and showed us how to write a proper essay including how to phrase our thoughts in the direction of our writing. In that class i had an awakening and was enlighten to what was the begining to my first real writing. I remembered writing that first assignment with interest and comprehension. My thoughts formulated its way into my writing. My writing constructed into a well written essay about the universal idea of the book ‘Of Mice and

At the beginning, I learned how to write my paragraphs properly and towards the end, I learned how to write an essay. For example, when I'm writing a paragraph, it's important to be more clear and specific in my topic sentence to get the reader to understand my point of view and to draw the reader's attention. For example, in my essay, I wrote “arranged marriage” as my topic. My professor taught me the correct way to write “my arranged marriage” as my topic. Then, I prove the topic sentence by giving clear examples and details information. At last, the conclusion of the paragraph has to wrap up the whole topic. Then, I learned how to write an essay with a better introduction, background information, and thesis. Also, I learned to have more examples and supporting details in paragraphs by comparing and contrasting, cause-and-effect, and problem solution. Before taking this class, I did not know how to write an essay. After learning this information about writing an essay, I can write a good

And to think I could not write an academic essay or a summary before I attended this class. I have gained essential writing skills this semester. I’m familiar with writing process, my current writing assignments possess a proper academic structure and are correctly organized. I feel confident producing thesis statement, supporting points and developing paragraphs. What I need to improve is the vocabulary – again, like I mentioned before I’ll keep strengthening and broadening it by reading and writing after this course.

My experiences in writing have been minimal. I have only learned the basics of writing, like putting together sentences, forming paragraphs with sentences, and things like that. Since I have been taking college English, I can tell my writing has improved a lot. In the future, I hope to be able to improve tremendously at writing essays, paragraphs, research papers, documents, and stories so that I have very little to no errors with drafting and final products. I predict I will be a well rounded writer when I graduate from college.