The two main writing strategies my placement has focused on thus far, are developing believable characters and writing drafts. To develop characters, we have taught the students to use the skills they learn in their reading lessons, and transform them onto the pages of their notebook. As mentioned, we have been working on identifying, and empathizing, with characters in reading. These same skills are needed for both reading about and writing about characters. The class is currently working on creating realistic fiction stories centered on a protagonist. The main focus of this unit is ensuring the characters created are believable, meaning do they seems like a person who could exist in real life. To accomplish this, students must make inferences about the different aspects of their character. All of the different aspects and traits of these characters need make sense in concert with one and other. The other main strategy they have learned in writing is how to write a draft. I model for the class how when writers create a first draft, they write in stream of consciousness. Meaning that the writing is less about correctness, and more about getting ideas on the paper. From there we discussed how writers edit these drafts, and ultimately revise the content into a publishable story. Through these examples, it is clear that this component of Tompkins balanced approach is being met. The fourth and fifth aspects of this approach are vocabulary and comprehension.
Neither vocabulary,
Throughout the course of freshmen year I have developed different skills and opinions on writing. I feel I have created a more mature style of writing and a better understanding of literature. I have changed my view of writing over this semester and acquired a strong liking for it. The importance of writing has become more visible throughout the past few months. Writing is crucial in many aspects of a person’s life. I have grown to be a more powerful and well built writer throughout this course.
In the article “Best Practices in Teaching Writing”, Charles Whitaker outlines eight points on helping students succeed as writers. The first
From elementary school to high school, I was taught that my writing had to be structured and follow strict criteria. After I arrived in Mr. Mukherjee’s ENG 102 class, I was given the opportunity to express my creative freedom through words and graphical pictures. It can often be difficult and challenging to improve upon my own writing abilities unless motived with an idea in mind. When looking back on my time at ASU, I thought about the goals that I wanted to address for myself and the course goals that my instructor had set for the class. These goals include ones that I had accomplished to the best of my ability and ones that I need to address as well as improve.
Within the past eight weeks, I have realized my strengths and weaknesses within the writing process. I have realized that I do not utilize the first step within the writing process of prewriting. However, for the drafting, revising, and polishing steps of the writing process, I am very familiar and use additional resources to strengthen the writing assignment. I create multiple drafts, which includes revising and polishing in each step. Therefore, I use all three of these steps in multiple drafts as I reach the final product for
At the start of this course, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had a goal for myself to improve and learn skills that would make writing less daunting for me. I have learned so many things about my writing that I didn’t think much about before. Another goal I had was to break the cookie-cutter mold that was set upon me throughout high school. During the process of revision, I discovered many things about myself as a writer and techniques that have been effective for me in the writing process.
There comes a time in life where we see an impossible obstacle, and do the best that we can to overcome it. For me, this was my AP English Language class in high school during senior year. The time was now, summer is nearly over. I analyzed my strengths and weaknesses, giving a full re-evaluation of myself. In the end, I consider myself an average writer. There have been times in the past when I’ve written letters or personal stories. However, those have never been my strongest set of skills. While I have been serious with my writing, I never recognized the unbelievable advantages that good writing has. Therefore, I’ve made it my goal to improve my literal skills and become a great writer. Maybe this new class will assist me in becoming that
My English Literature major has helped me to achieve an outstanding level of appreciation, enjoyment, and knowledge of both American and British Literature. As a high school AP English student, I struggled through great works like Hamlet and To the Lighthouse. My teacher’s daily lectures (there was no such thing as class discussion) taught me merely to interpret the works as critics had in the past. I did not enjoy the reading or writing process. As a freshman at Loras, I was enrolled in the Critical Writing: Poetry class. For the first time since grade school, my writing ability was praised and the sharing of my ideas was encouraged by an enthusiastic and nurturing professor. Despite the difficulty of poetry, I enjoyed reading it.
Teachers, parents, and friends often tell students exactly what the writing process should entail and how long it should take. However, the older I get, the more I realize that the writing process varies not only from person to person, but also from one writing project to the next. Throughout my years of life, I have written countless papers, ranging from a persuasive speech to an extensive research paper, and each project requires an altered version of my personal writing process. While each individual has his own writing process, there can be many similarities between different writing processes. Finding one’s individual writing process takes trial, error, and repetition. When an individual finally uncovers his unique writing process, better thought, work, and writing is produced.
Lamott compares the process of writing with the painful process of pulling the teeth. She believes that in order to produce a high quality writing, the author must first put together all their ideas and thoughts in form of the “child draft”. This draft determines the flow and dimension
It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.
Writing drafts is something I struggle with every time I have to do an essay. It takes me over two hours to finish an introduction. Once done with the introduction the body of the essay easy until I get to the conclusion, which is when my struggle to complete the draft returns. I believe the introduction of a draft is one of the most difficult parts for me of writing a draft because it is hard to come up with ideas for the introduction. Then the conclusion is hard because I have to find a way to restate what took me so long to come up with for the introduction. Ultimately, I will be able to complete a draft without difficulty for if I do them step by step and by write down my ideas and information before beginning anything and not to
Those that write always have a writing process whether they know it or not. A writing process can be defined by the way an individual gears up for the project at hand. It can be as simple as finding a favorite chair to write in or the act of planning out the writing beforehand. My own personal writing process varies from task to task with a few constants. I generally start my writing process by first reconciling my project; figuring out the best way to express the needs of the work. I do not write down notes or an outline in regards to the project mostly relying on winging it so as not to get hung up on sticking to the outline. I will my best to knock out large chunks of the project before taking any breaks unless I hit a wall, and
I found “Shitty First Draft” interesting due to humorous tone remains throughout the essay. After reading this paper, I realized how important to convey different tones of writing in accordance with the situation or the story you are telling; it is reflective of your writing style, current mood and even your point of view towards certain subject matters. For example, in “Shitty First Draft”, the author reveals some facet of writers in face of challenging themselves to finish writing. Instead of being calm and relaxed, those writers are anxious and worrisome as the author states, “It is not like you don't have a choice---because you do---you can either type or kill yourself.” By telling the readers a few writing stories in an amusing way, the author successfully makes the difficulty of writing understandable to the readers. It is like telling yes, I understand your pain because I went through it before and everyone did. By doing so, the author makes herself approachable to the students who struggle with writing and those potential readers are now more willing to listen to her advice.
My current personal writing process is not consistent. Sometimes I brainstorm, create cluster charts, and lists, but other times I throw together an essay and hope for the best. Most of the time, I read the directions of a writing assignment and make sure I understand the parameters of the assignment very clearly. Next, I ponder upon the assignment for a while. Then, I like to brainstorm some of the ideas that may have come to mind throughout the day. After brainstorming, I will take out anything that does not make sense or is irrelevant to my writing topic. Now, I usually start to organize my ideas into an outline or a flow chart. Once I can see the organization take place, I fill in the details giving me a rough draft. Afterwards, I will
My character has both opened and closed many doors for me in life. Most of the time you will see that I'm very laid back and relaxed. Independence is one of my key qualities. I never like to bother people with my problems because ultimately they're not always going to be there for you. I roam around in silence; being loud and obnoxious is not something that has ever given me much success in life. I try to conquer a healthy and happy lifestyle, but you know how that usually goes. I am pretty athletic I believe because I have put in so much hard work and dedicated even more time to football throughout my eighteen years of life. My life experiences have given me a rebellious trait. For example, whenever I get yelled at in football by Coach