The Philosophy Of English 101

English Composition I has developed my style of writing and my skills analyzing and researching topics to write a piece about a topic. Throughout the course, I got better at analyzing articles and pieces to get the meaning of the topic. With that improved skill I was more able to use the information given from the text and install it into my essays, with proper citation if needed. Before taking the English Composition course, I was not one to organize my essays in an ordeal order to clearly state the point of the work. Now with taking the course, I have learned to organize my essays, examine research for a topic, and develop an essay with proper mechanics, and revising skills. In writing my personal, review, analytical, and cultural

In this portfolio, I have included a variety of pieces that displays my strengths and weaknesses in my work. As I come to the end of the semester and reflect on my work in your English 112 class, I can see how I improved as a writer. English 112 has taught me many things and has helped me develop more skills as a reader. I have completed several assignments this semester such as readings, journals, multiple essays, and an oral presentation. My portfolio includes “All in the Family”, “Trapped Treasures”, “A Student Is More Than a Number”, a chosen revision of “Trapped Treasures”, my journals reflection, my personal essay reflections, my annotated bibliography, and lastly my self-assessment sheet.

Throughout the school year of 2015-2016 at the Founders Academy, I have wrote numerous essays, with generally positive results. Several of the essays exceeded expectations, while others reached expectations to a modest extent, but all of the essays were supported by the writing skills that I had learned that year, regardless of my strengths or weaknesses with these skills. These techniques vary extensively, from comparing and contrasting ideas in a text to editing and revising essays for quality results, which is proven in my writing portfolio.

The overall course of English 102 with Professor Lyn has impacted my writing and me as an individual. Not only did the course help me improve my writing, but it helped me think of the ideas and norms that we ascribe to in the world as more complex. This portfolio shows how some of the learning objectives of English 102 reflects my growth as a writer and thinker. The papers that are included in this portfolio demonstrate my mastery of the learning objectives of this course. There are first drafts to show where I began in my writing process and final drafts to demonstrate my understanding of what was wrong in my first submissions. My ability to edit and recognize errors in my paper shows my improvement of writing. The different types of writing and audiences the papers are intended for impacted my approach of writing these papers.

Coming into English 101 as a freshman art student with only the standard amount of high school writing experience under my belt, this course initially was a bit of a struggle. Though many of my art classes include writing interpretive essays and analysing visual works of art, being able to interpret and analyze a written article proved to be a whole different and difficult procedure for me. Over the course of the class we had to read three major articles and respond to each one by writing an interpretive essay. In writing these essays we aimed at improving our writing skills in efforts to be able to analyze and interpret specific text, maintain a controlling purpose, and demonstrate awareness of rhetorical situations.

As a way to learn and validate the research process, the students of English 1120 each conducted a survey with the other students in the class. Surveys were composed of two-three focused subject questions. Question were intended to have enough depth so that the students could form several assumptions based on the way their peers answered. In the class survey I composed, students answered questions based on their relationship with cultures different from their own. The first question asks students if they had ever traveled, and how far their adventure took them if they had. Ten students have traveled outside of the United States borders, and five students have gone across the pond to other countries. When asked, “Do you desire to know about cultures that differ from yours?” Twelve students replied that they do desire to learn more, and seven students replied that they would like to learn cultures in some respects. The final question asks, ““Do you think learning about different cultures is beneficial to you as a student?” Eighteen out of the nineteen respondents marked that they believe cultural learning is beneficial to them in their academic life.

Knowing how to write properly is an important part of your education. Once you start your career after college, not a day will go by that you will not use what you learn English 111. A few things that will make you successful in English 111 include working ahead in class, asking for help if you need it, and studying.

When I began college last fall, I had been terrified of writing. I had been out of school for almost twenty years and had not engaged in any writing activities since that time. I had a minor melt down after reading the discussion posts of my fellow students in one of my classes, because their writing had seemed so advanced in comparison to my own. I told the professor that I did not know if I would be capable of completing the writing assignments for the course. This professor had said that I had wonderful insights due to my life experience and that I would be fine if I remembered to approach the assignments with the mindset of writing quality over quantity. I had to do research on how to properly write essays and use the assistance my facilitators to proofread my work, but I eventually began to progress as a writer.

Writing a personal essay is, well… personal. The first of the major assignments for my English 121 class was a personal essay. Having been out of school for many years, this first attempt at college level writing has been somewhat intimidating. Verbally sharing my thoughts has never been a problem however, employing the written word has always been more challenging. Reflecting on the experience of revising the rough draft of the personal essay reveals growth in a basics understanding of essay format, more defined critical thinking, and focused exploration of self.

This first semester at the University of Akron has flown by. I learned many new writing concepts that helped me become a better writer. English composition was a required class that I had to take in order to get my degree. Although this class was required I still wanted to take this class to become more knowledgeable about writing. Coming into English Composition I was worried about all of the papers and the workload that I would have to complete. I knew that I was going to have to write a lot more than I previously had in highschool, but I was unsure of just how much. The works that I decided to include in my portfolio comprise of my Literacy Narrative, Image Analysis Paper, and essay titled Mayas Hardships based on Maya’s experiences in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I selected these works because I felt that they are the ones that require the most improvement to them. The papers i've chosen show how far I’ve came In English Composition.

“I want people to notice my writing abilities are real and that I'm not just stuck in one situation” (R. Kelly). At montgomery community college, english 101 is the first english class that consists of reading and writing. Students are able to show their understanding of an author's message and have the ability to write an essay with great potential.

Over the course of the English 1B class, my eyes opened to new techniques and to consider new ways to improve my writing. Throughout this course, my class was assigned four essays all of which asking different questions. Some of the essay were more difficult than another because it required more work and research; however, writing these essays helped me to grow as a better writer. During these essay writing process, I was able to grab a sense of what is and what is not essential when writing an essay and to remember to avoid diverging from the essay topic itself.

In order to gain a sense of familiarity for first- year college writing, a small portfolio of the student’s work was submitted to help high schools students become more prepared for the college writing techniques. A college writing course is much different than a high school class. Although the course is only a semester long, instead of the traditional year long class high schools provide, I have learned how to write a stronger essay in a shorter amount of learning time. For this portfolio my previous work is highlighted to use as a spectacle into what college level writing really entails. For this first- year college writing course, I discovered writing can have different opinions, needs reliable sources, and is more related to real world concerns. This course has provided a structure to excel in becoming a better writer.

Writing has always been my greatest weakness throughout the years that i have been in school. Since I’am a foreign, learning a language was a challenging especially when my native language is completely different than English. Even though my communication skills have been improved dramatically since I have been here in the United States, writing is the only skill that i need to improve. I have signed up to take English 110C for mainly two reason. The first reason is that it is a mandatory course for all incoming freshmen to be eligible to graduate. The second reason is that it will help me improve my writing skills that i will need throughout my college years and the future. Throughout the semester, I have written a plethora of essays such as a rhetorical analysis, comparative review, annotated bibliography, exploratory, and an argumentative essay. Since it is my first time writing these types of essays, I struggled at first trying to figure out how to start the essays; however, our professor assisted us and showed us sample essays that help us write our essays. I’ am very thankful that i managed to take this course because i have learned a numerous of writing skills that will help me throughout my college years.

Throughout this semester I have slowly honed my writing style and skills through the creation of each piece of this portfolio. At the beginning of the semester, the starting paper was a daunting task due to the unique task of writing with another person’s writing style. I tackled the paper head-on by first choosing a topic that I had many thoughts on. The topic of how fear and curiosity drives humanity’s own personal drive to accomplish. This allowed me to see which essay style best suited the topic, thus letting me to jump start the writing of the essay. At the beginning all of my thoughts tumbled out onto the paper; however, as I revised, slowly the paper came together into a semblance of cohesive thoughts. With the second revision the essay ended up containing varying examples within the writing style to truly embody Solnit’s writing style of utilizing various examples for one general topic. Moving from the first essay to the second essay, I returned to more familiar territory of writing academic essays. Writing this essay was comparatively easier than the first essay mainly for the fact that I have written academic, analysis essays throughout my high school career. Getting all my thoughts out onto paper came easily, without much brain scraping. With the first revision I added more quotation and analysis to beef up what was already in my paper. The analysis added within my paper after the first revision provided a stronger argument on the position I took on the presence