Survive College Composition

The first few years of college student’s lives are not necessarily the most enjoyable time, having to take the basic core classes. Unless someone is planning on getting their degree in something that involves the basic core classes like; Math, Psychology, any Humanities, or English. English has not been my strong suit and I know that I still have work that needs to be done to make me a better writer, but I believe that I was able to meet and achieve the goals and requirements of this Composition two class.

Chapter 2 of Successful College Writing written by Kathleen McWhorter focused on several different points. However, the main core of the chapter is mostly focused* on college writing and what is expected of it. It mentions* how college introduces you to new forms of writing, and also using sources to support your information and arguments in your essays. This chapter not only mentions the new writing styles you will experience, but also how to be successful in them by giving you helpful tips and aiding you in figuring out your learning style.

In “Expectations for College Writing,” the author indicates the importance of thinking and communicating to succeed after college. A writer’s style acknowledges a social or academic expression. A writer’s skill to rationalize ideas and think critically demonstrates an essential technique for enhancing communication in the work environment.

In Freshman Composition I learned what metacognition means, and how it applies to academic writing. Next I learned about textual evidence and backing up your opinions with research. *I expect this class to help develop my writing skills, as well as find my voice in writing, all together I expect this class to be challenging but rewarding. Therefore I have set a few goals for myself, my first goal is to step out of my comfort zone and research topics I have never heard of before. My second goal is to not second-guess myself on my writing topics and/or choices. Furthermore I expect great things to come from this

Words are an essential part of everyone's life, from the time a baby is born words are encouraged to stimulate their growth because simply being able to say "milk" or "mama" provides the baby with a huge amount of power. In fact, they were even used to

Completing freshman composition is one of the greatest accomplishments I have achieved throughout my high school career. I have experienced an immense amount of improvement on my writing as well as a huge deal of stress throughout the semester. In the past, writing was never one of my strong suits; however, I have learned quite a bit, for example, how to use semicolons, write with metacognition, and how to correctly do a works cited. During my time in this class, I have: reflected, set goals, learned the writing process, tracked my progress, and learned a huge deal about myself, life and college.

When it comes to evaluating myself and if I am prepared for my first college writing course I believe that I am prepared to take my first college writing course. Before joining my ESC 021 class with Professor Kraft I felt that I was prepared and that I would be able to complete assignments without difficulty, but I was so used to the one on one sessions where I would go over the little mistakes or find ways to produce an exceptional essay that I forgot that I was own my own now. Through the short time in ESC 021 I learned my weaknesses and strengths as a writer. I now have the ability to receive feedback and effectively use my feedback to better my assignments.

The importance of college-level writing is a topic that is very much backed up and accompanied by facts and studies. Writing in the college-level is needed in order to master college work in any class. Basically all classes require you to more than likely submit some kind of research paper or essay. Writing for Learning to Improve Students’ Comprehension at the College Level by Fahad Alharbi as well as Luiza Costa Ribeiro, Writing Essays at College: Why it’s Important both go into detail on how important writing at this level is and all the skills learned for during and after college. As well on how you can benefit from them.

As I look back, College Composition has improved my writing techniques and skills by directing me through tons of practice with writing, readings, and examples from the textbook, in-class discussions and helped me notice my strengths and weaknesses as an English student. Some of my strengths that can be shown in my previous essays are: my ability to free-write with lots of detail, structuring an essay correctly, constructing a very well organized and detailed essay, and manage time and use it to construct a well- thoughtful essay, my thesis statements in all four of my essays were structured correctly, and also, it can take me less time to come up with a debatable topic for my essay than it did at the beginning of the semester; therefore, I have quite a bunch of weaknesses, it can take me a while to start an essay, still to this day, and I can’t begin to write an essay without completing the introduction paragraph first, every now and then the structure of my sentences can cause a problem and a hard time for the reader to understand what I’m really trying to say, and trying to get my point to come across clearly may be a challenge for me as well; also, I’ve noticed that in my previous essays I had put a few commas in the wrong places or missed some commas in a sentence, I have also misused semi-colons, sometimes I have used the wrong word or phrase in a sentence which has made my sentences really unclear and ending an essay with a conclusion paragraph can take me some time

College Composition has helped me grow tremendously as a writer. While I am still not where I want to be as a writer, Comp 1 has given me the push in the right direction that high school never did. When I was in high school I had about a month total of grammar over those 4 years so writing was not a big part of my life at that point. Due to that, I knew coming into Comp 1 that I would struggle to produce something worth reading at first. Through countless revisions and reflections on each paper I have learned so much about the process of writing in such a short time.

When I graduated high school, I already knew that I wanted to attend college other than going to the work force. I heard stories about college being fun and it is one of the greatest accomplishment a person can achieve. So, I began college right after high school. As I entered college, I learned that I will have to focus more on writing papers than having fun. In high school my teachers did not prepare me for college essays. I feel like I learned a lot more failing on my college writing assignment than passing on the essays in high school. Well now I have approached the end of the semester of college, and I am exhausted from the constant writing assignments. Although the assignments were difficult like I said it was also helpful. Each assignment helped me in different ways. The assignments helped me improved with my grammar, time management, and how to process before I begin writing. In English 1010 I had different types of writing assignments. I had to write a literacy narrative paper, analysis paper, research paper, and lastly an autoethnography paper which I am doing now. An autoethnography is when the author uses self reflects to write about their experiences about writing a paper. English is not the only subject that I had writing assignments in. I also had to write assignment in my business class. My English teacher had informed me that I will have to do an autoethnography. So, I used my paper in my business class to reflect on how I write by

Writing an essay in college is a big challenge for most students, including myself. It involves strong critical thinking and a meticulous process. After narrowing down and selecting a topic, we then need to establish the main point and how we want to deliver our opinions, ideas, or visions to our audience. We want to create a piece of writing that delivers a clear message, with strong and relevant details, to support the main point. We need to think and plan thoroughly, write, review, and rewrite before we get the end result. This is why drafting, reviewing, revising, and editing are vital parts of writing.

I haven’t had to write a lot of papers in my life besides the occasional assignments in middle school and high school. Back in middle school it was mainly trying to get your handwriting down, creating rough drafts and then finalizing them in Microsoft Word. I had a few papers to write in high school but we were given multiple days to research and brainstorm what we wanted to talk about. This is really the first class I have taken that is dedicated to writing formal essays in a specified format with topics that are a little more challenging than what I have experienced in the

Getting mentally and academically ready for college can be a very stressful task for an individual. Throughout high school I was a good writer and my senior year I’ve decided to take that extra step and take college level classes. At the beginning of the year I was a decent writer who didn’t use much organization and imagination while typing up an essay. Now at the end of Composition two I have gained the necessary skills to succeed in college level courses. To thrive in college level work one must be able to properly revise and edit their writing, communicate effectively with their professor and contain the skills to write an organized essay. I was able to gain all of these skills while completing Composition 1 and 2.

Over the course of this past semester, my ability to write has improved tremendously. Prior to undertaking this course, my expertise in writing was not as fine-tuned as it should have been. I had never previously been enrolled in a class specifically tailored to writing-- which was quite clear. Upon reading my past works, it becomes apparent that my writing style consisted of fluff, small words, and inconsistently structured sentences. These problems have, for the most part, been remedied with the coursework I have tackled in College Writing. Rather than long, drawn out papers that take an eternity to reach the primary point, my recent work is much nicer in terms of composition and grammar. I credit these improvements to the three primary