William 's English Comp 1 Class

When I first entered english composition 1101, I expected this course to be manageable. As an outstanding english student at Clarke Central high school, I believed that I had enough knowledge to excel in this course with no challenges. Dr. Catherine Rogers was able to knock me off of my high horse and make me realize that I has a lot more to learn about reading and writing. She is very comprehensive and analytical, which caused her to give me a c average on my midterm assignments. I put the blame on myself because I believe that I should have been more open to Dr. Rogers’ methods with pre-writing and revision. Now I think highly of reading and writing.

In the beginning of the semester, everyone was write down two goals that would be accomplished in the semester. Experience in writing papers showed me that I was weak in writing any type of papers. However, I was determined to stop repeating idea by rewording as well as writing information that is unnecessary. Also, I knew I had to improve on writing essays with no to very few mistakes, whether it is structurally or punctually. I am pleased with discontinuing any repetitions while writing, but am not so pleased about structuring and punctuating my sentences.

Kim Brooks, we know has been “teaching composition at state universities and liberal art colleges and community colleges as well,” (Brooks 2) however what makes her truly passionate about the situation is her love for literature since she was a teenager. “Like so many, depressive, creative, extremely lazy high-school students, I was saved by english class” (1). Brooks demonstrates through these quotes her credibility, not only because she’s a teacher but because she truly loves writing and believes others should receive the education which she was fortunate enough to get. She was not apart of any clubs or extracurriculars, she wasn’t interested in other academic classes, so she knows how beneficial having the skills to converse, to write and to properly articulate one's self are. Brooks shares this personal anecdote, otherwise known as pathos, to relate to those reading, most specifically high school students like she once was. While focusing this piece mainly on English it can also be associated with other classes in high school as well. She is trying to illustrate how one can use what is learned in high school in their life if given the proper tools and taught skills which can be applied

The art of writing is a complex and difficult process. Proper writing requires careful planning, revision, and proofreading. Throughout the past semester, the quality of my writing has evolved significantly. At first, I struggled with the separation of different types of paragraphs, and I found writing them laborious. Constant practice, however, has eliminated many of my original difficulties, and helped to inspire confidence in my skills. As a collegiate writer, my strength lies in my clear understanding of the fundamentals of writing, while my primary weakness is proofreading my own work.

With the anxiety flowing throughout my body, I knew the time was near of facing my English 1301 class. Being told that I needed to improve my writing during my grade school days, I knew that I didn’t feel at ease going into a college level English class. But, with this in mind I had to pull myself together to encounter the challenges that I will face. However, having the privilege of having an amazing professor I believe my writing skills improved, also I was able to find my confidence.

Directions:  Answer each question in a paragraph—be sure to give specific details and examples.  Remember that each of these questions has multiple parts to it.  You must type your responses out and hand it to me by the end of our class period.

In literary education, from childhood to maturity, individuals are taught how to write not to improve themselves as critical thinkers, but to fulfill the requirements given to them in a prompt. Whether to analyze or argue, this form of writing has led to a cease of literary improvement in students today, making many question the effectiveness of writing classes. Mike Bunns, in his article “To Read like a Writer”, explores this topic and stresses the necessity for young readers to critically examine the author’s choices in order to improve their own pieces of work. Bunns effectively argues to his audience of college students that improved comprehension comes from focusing on the rhetorical choices authors decide to make in their compositions by tying personal narratives with repetitive questioning throughout his article.

Before taking on the challenge of critical reading, writing, and researching, I would like to

The blinds on the windows are shut, it feels like a prison cell as I sit under the spotlight. The darkness outside makes me feel somber and alone. I stare at the glowing screen and think to myself, “It’s just me and this paper.” In December of my junior year in high school, I was assigned a persuasive essay on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter; it was my first academic essay of the year. My previous experiences with academic writing were both stressful and unfulfilling; when the essay topic was announced, I felt only resentment and anger, I remembered my past tribulations. With my mother’s help, this essay was different; after I submitted it to the teacher, I possessed a new perspective on academic writing. From my experience, I learned that strong writing skills are vital to communication, critical thinking, and life outside of the classroom.

When I stop to think about the memory’s that I have made during my first semester of college; there are both good and bad pieces or times that present themselves. Often with many things there are gray areas, and writing would fall in there for me. I fortunately understand now that I have times where I can over look many of my writing flaws. Such as sentence structure! This by far was my biggest problem in this class, and I fully understand why. Personally I have times that will type up a paragraph and never notice the mistake. That is until someone points it out to me. It’s almost like my brain knows that something is wrong with it, but for some unknown reason it won’t register when I’m revising my paper. So as a writer I have realized that I need to take advantage of people around me and get their feedback on my essay’s; because

I observed Dr. Jenny Crisp’s English 98 class on January 19, 2016. The class began at 12:15 PM and lasted until 1:20 PM. The room that the class met in was on the third floor of the Liberal Arts building, and the room had individual computers for each of the students to work on. The class was divided into two sections on this day because Dr. Crisp had scheduled an introductory visit to the writing lab, which began at 12:45. Prior to the visit to the writing lab, Dr. Crisp guided the class in a discussion on the topic of revision in regards to the first paper that the class had submitted. The stages of revision were discussed and the students were shown where additional help could be found within the book. Dr. Crisp told the students that the reason that their grades on the essays were significantly lower was because the essays were lacking in detail and had Type One errors. She stated that revision is important and that could help bring up the grades on the essays.

This course offers numerous opportunities to improve our writing. In this class, I not only enhanced the skills I already had, but also learned new writing concepts. Before I took this class, I knew that my writing is poor, and I have always wanted to improve it; however, I did not know how and what aspects of writing to improve. So, I came into this class with the ambition to improve my writing, and I have accomplished my goal although there is still room for improvement. At this point of this course, I have learned the elements that successful writing is composed of, and I am now able to categorize the various techniques that can work together to define strong

“Finally!” I thought to myself as summer is slowly approaching, “I am done with this high school forever.” I honestly am so excited for summer that each day I count down the number days I have for school. Moreover, I constantly think of the activities that I will do during the summer that sound a lot better than school. Despite being overjoyed of leaving high school, I certainly would not deny that I have tremendously improved as a writer. True, as mentioned in all of my previous reflective essays, I still despise English; however, I have to grudgingly admit College Credit Plus English 1010 refined my writing skills from my junior year in AP English class. My classmates and teacher pointed out some ways that I could brush up my essays, which

Over the past month, we have been studying the concept of reading and writing in different communities. To assess this, we have read two different texts. Richard Rodriguez’s the achievement of desire”, from his autobiography “Hunger of Memory”; and Lucille McCarthy’s “A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing across the Curriculum” from “Research in the Teaching of English”. Both answer key questions regarding what it takes to become a great reader and writer, however, from the reading that I have done, each one only answers one part of the question. Rodriguez’s main focus is in the aspect of reading, whereas McCarthy mainly focuses on the writing portion. Both do a decent job of analyzing and putting forth a view of how they believe a person can best perform in these environments. This then allows us to use their concepts and create our own version, based on their points of view. But why should we care? Most people at this level of academia will have developed a system of writing that works for them, and will have a difficult time breaking from it if they’re process doesn’t meet the criteria that Rodriguez, and McCarthy put forth. The reason it’s so important is because of implications these ideas have. Both authors put forth concepts that are indirectly related to one another and that are highly beneficial to all who will apply them. They will force you to conform to new environments in order to succeed, this in turn will make you more

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