What I Learned About Myself As A Writer In My Class

English has never been my strongest topic nor has the writing process been easy when faced with writer block. This challenge made writing difficult at times in where I was unable to think what should be written next. In this portfolio, I include a variety of pieces in the growth in my abilities of overcoming this challenge as a writer. As I reflect back at the end of the semester on my work in the writing 01 course, I am able to see clearly how much have improved as a writer and display my growth. I have learned about myself in term of weakness and strength and learned from them. In this portfolio , I tried to show the presence of the different style of work I completed and the peer editing of this semester. And how the feedback that I receive

I have been a student at San Jose States University for second years, English 1A was my first regular English class, and over the course of my stay I have grown and learned a lot. As Hospitality major, I do not know whether need my writing skills for future job, but I know the great experience in English 1A class would help me to improve all my writing weakness.

A semester has passed since I started college and my journey of becoming a better writer. It has been a very important semester for my future college career, and I would not be here without the things I have accomplished. The composition program has really helped me to prepare for what college writing is all about. Now standing here and looking back I could not imagine how it would be without that class. I believe my English, and my writing is better than it has ever been, and all thanks to the composition program.

Over the course of this semester I learned a lot about myself as a writer. This English 101 class has really allowed me to expand my essay structure and ways of thinking. This was my first college writing course and it has given me much more freedom when writing because in high school I felt limited and like what we were writing was not very important. In high school I would write essays to just to fulfill the required word or page count and to a degree I still feel like this but maybe that is why I am an engineering major but in this course I actually was able to express my ideas and for the first time really test the limits of my writing capabilities. I really enjoyed being able to incorporate my voice more in my essays and I believe

As the semester approaches a conclusion, I have discovered for myself that I happen to exhibit not simply on how I have endured this semester, but then again also what I have gained in knowledge of. In the past four months, I would consider that I obtain an accomplishment of achievement in improving my writing techniques. The most important principle that I have discovered so far ensues on how to become an improved writer. With each writing assignment, I learned additional methods and skills, which tweaked my capabilities to develop my thoughts in detail on paper, to write clearly, and to organize my essays efficiently. In previous years, I would frequently catch myself irritated believing I had terrible writer’s block standing in my path of writing an organized essay. This created a feeling as if I could not distinguish how to write properly and the reasoning behind my hatred for writing. During high school, I learned the Modern Language Association (MLA) formats for bibliographies and parenthetical citations, consequently at the beginning of the fall semester, I knew only this format. I was able to learned the correct format for the American Psychological Association (APA) style when doing each assignment at hand.

Writing has never been my strong suit, simply because I am not interested in the given topics. However, the times I really like to write is when I can talk about a topic I love talking about. In those essays, I can write non-stop, but as a college student, in my experience, “free write” topics are rarely given, which brings a weak spot to me. If there is no free write assignment, often times it is a topic I cannot relate to. I need to learn how to get out of my comfort zone when it comes to writing.

I entered the fall semester viewing myself as a non-writer. I have always had trouble getting the ideas and thoughts out of my head and onto paper. I have always been more comfortable stating aloud what I thought as opposed to writing them down. This semester has taught me a great deal. I have learned that I am capable of accomplishing college level writing. Even more, I have learned that I can focus and dig deeper to add more detail than I had thought I could when I started this semester.

I may not be the best writer there is out there but I do put all of me into each piece I develop. I believe in giving it your all at all times. If your giving it anything less why try at all. I'm huge on that theory and I believe it means a lot more than I believe it to be. I hope that each piece I submit this semester is nothing less than my best and I hope to take in all the criticism and use it to my advantage.

This semester was my very first semester as a college student. Being the first, it was probably the semester I would learn the most in. I learned the expectations for writing that I will have to live up to for the next four years of my college career. Though my high school teachers were usually demanding because I was in the Honors English section throughout high school, writing in college has still ?raised the bar? for me. Also, in high school, we would have weeks to pick a topic, create a thesis, outline the paper, write the paper, and then revise the paper. In college, the time restraints are not quite as lenient. I?ve had to learn to manage my time and be more productive with what free moments I

Throughout the course of this semester, I have learned so much about writing. I used to think writing was my best skill in terms of school, but after taking this course, I realized I have a lot to learn still. In high school English was always my highest grade because of my writing, my writing in my SAT scores was always the highest, and last semester in ENGL 1301, I got a high A in the course. But this course has challenged me as a writer to think outside of the box and be more academically smarter in terms of writing. The journals have helped me write about things that we like more than the other assignments because it gives us more freedom and flexibility about what we can write about. These journals are being used as a tool as practice

Well, my first semester in college is coming to an end and I have learned many things about myself, my learning and most specifically my writing. My writing 101 class was a bit of a culture shock for me. I was surprised by the amount of freedom we had in that class and how much I didn’t actually know about writing. Our class’s instructions were to keep a blog of what we were feeling or thinking while writing each essay over the course of the semester. With each essay and blog post, I learned more and more about my writing style and what I liked to write about.

If I’m to be honest, this school year has been very enjoyable, much more than any of my previous classes. We’ve gone through so much as a class, had many assignments along the way–some that I enjoyed, while others not so much. We rewrote the Declaration of Independence, Walt Whitman 's I Hear America poem, and argumentative essays, like out The Raven analysis. We also gave speeches– that was the hardest for me, in my previous English classes, none of them made me go in front of the class and present–, made infograph, and even a multigenre project. We also can’t forget the books we’ve read in class, like poems from Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, and novels from F. Scott Fitzgerald, and we can’t forget novella like Of Mice and Men or short stories that we read in our English textbook. All of these things have tested my ability to better improve myself or inform me on where I struggle with so I can improve in many categories such as being a speaker, reader, writer, and listener.

On a list of the things that make me cringe, there is my old “MySpace” page, listening to myself on recordings, and re-reading my old essays. Especially the essays as most of the stories I wrote were either exaggerated or faked to make myself seem more interesting. There is nary a comma seen in my sentences, and I abused words such as like, that, very, and so. It is blatantly obvious the only purpose in the papers was a “Hey! Look at me! I’m important!”, by the resume-like structure of the paper with my glowing (but fake) accomplishments. I promise I’m honest in my papers now, but I still find myself going off message in my essays like a distracted driver going off the road.

As the year draws to a close, I reflect on what I have accomplished in my first semester of college. Not only have I grown as a writer but also as a person. This year was full of changes but I am glad that I remained steadfast in my beliefs and skills. While I learned things about myself in this course I also gained important writing and research skills.

Throughout my writing process over the past few months,I have grown so much!I have learned so many different techniques and different ways to check over my writing.After reviewing my past writings I can see all the little flaws that I made and had no idea that it was wrong. It feels very refreshing to look over something I did a few months ago and know the mistakes I have made, and more importantly know how to fix these minor and some large mistakes. I am ready to move on with my academics and career with as prepared as I am today.