The act of writing an essay has always been something of a love/hate relationship for me. Like many students, I find the process to be either pure enjoyment or incredibly painful depending on my view of the topic. It’s something that I think all of us come to terms with at some point. Throughout this course I have come to realize that a lot of the pain associated with writing can be relieved through an understanding of the skills and methods needed. The process of my growth in this class can be seen throughout my essays. It’s almost hard to believe the journey I’ve been on from my first essay in this class to my last. The feeling I get when I look over my writing assignments is the same as I would get if I were looking at pictures of myself developing as a child. It’s a feeling of distance. Like the entire process took place a long time ago. Despite the fact they were only done months ago; the changes that I have undergone in writing feel immense. Each essay from the first one to the last reflects the challenges and lessons that have contributed to my growth as a student.
The first essay provided a good foundation for the changes that I would make throughout the course. If I could use only one word to describe this essay it would be overconfidence. I came into this class with the misguided belief that I already knew what I needed to know. Looking back on my first essay it is apparent that I had little to no idea what was involved in good writing. The initial reaction that I get when I read through the first essay is that it is completely void of any personal style. The tone comes across as being robotic, and I can’t help but cringe while reading it. Ironically, I had stated that good writing is “passionate and thought provoking.”...
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...ersonal voice. By the second essay I had begun to develop a sense of myself. I started to break away from the repetitive tone of the first paper, and express myself as an individual through my writing. Additionally, I was able to create a stronger paper by learning how to use sources to better effect. Despite the progress I had made during the second paper, I feel as though the third paper didn’t really show additional growth from the second. However, by writing assignment number four I really felt like I had hit my stride in the class. Everything I had learned previously came together to help me fully express my views on education to my audience. This final essay has allowed me to reflect on my own process of growth in the course. From this point I can see that the skills I have developed in this course are going to be essential in succeeding in college and beyond.
The following final drafts, drafts, notes, and peer review letters represent my growth as a writer in the span of one semester. I learned quite a bit about myself and the things i can do to improve my writing and the methods of doing proper research in order to write a proper research essay. Though i have seen an improvement within these essays, i feel i still have much to practice upon.
Over the past semester, I have found the most challenging part of this course to simply be the transition from high school composition classes to college. Because writing expectations are so different in college than in high school, even with AP and Dual Enrollment “college level” classes, I first found myself being overwhelmed with the pressure to write the perfect first draft. The pressure came from knowing how much a final draft of a paper contributed to my grade. This left me sitting in front of my computer for hours at a time with thoughts of what I wanted to say racing through my head, but unable to deliver these thoughts into organized, structured sentences. I learned, through writing my persuasive essay, that instead of trying to write the paper start to finish and already in its perfect form, it is easier for me to look at the paper through its different components and focus on them individually, then work to best organize my ideas fluently.
Throughout the semester i only learned few new things but i did improve and solidify my skill of writing. Before my first year of college my skills have always undermined by other high school english teachers and with that came disappointing grades. I am writing this paper as a reflection of the semester and the progress i have made as a writer. I now understand many things that my high school teachers have done a poor job demonstrating and i am grateful that i decided to take my own route in my education instead of their syllabus. I entered the semester with anxiety that i would perform as i did before but i clearly outdid my own expectations by receiving top grades on my essays.
The classes that I had taken were worthy and brilliant but my flow to make the essay smooth and natural was hard to achieve, my essays sounded inconsistent and odd. To add on, my transitions of the story was awkward and misplaced, but in my thought it was great. In addition, to fix my weakness I edited and read it out loud multiple times, but my goal was not achievable within the time I had with my instructors. Moving on, from this class I am expected to learn a great amount of skills for grammar and techniques for a better writer. The new and emphasized rules to a better author; from this class I want to a walkout with a fundamental of how to improve the quality of my essay. Furthermore, knowledge that I will preserve to reflect and transfer into essays of my own profession in many fields of occupation. Not to mention, I want my writing to not only appease my satisfaction, but also be acknowledged by other individuals of my work. Moreover, during the period of my writing journey, one of the most positive I had been writing a summary for a book with my own interpretation. This experience was in my English Ap class with Ms.McBurnette-Arguelles,
When it came to the process of writing my first, second, and third essay’s, there was clear visual improvement that I have become a better writer in certain aspects. As for essay one, I tended to rely on my writing skills as a high school student rather than use the components of a successful college student essay. This was definite once I received the feedback given by ...
I have enjoyed learning about the topics we have learned about, from education to this sports unit. Writing has never been my strong suit and I think that this class has helped me. I like learning about the different styles of argument and what devices to use when making the strongest claim. Throughout the education essay, I learned a lot about my writing and that I write better, when I am enthusiastic about the subject. I was and am very interested in these topics, and I love trying to relate the topics back to my personal experiences. In the next semester, I hope to read closer into the text and take better notes. I think that these two major essays would have been easier if I had notes to reflect on and review, rather than taking notes for the essay. I am excited to start the second semester with this mindset as we enter into a new
Multiple essays have been formulated during the duration of Composition 1. These essays have taught me an important lesson about my writing, failure is acceptable in order to grow. On the other hand, I made an important discovery last year that I want to study journalism and advance further in that field after college. From taking journalism classes, to blogging in my spare time, to always getting an A on my papers, I thought I had no room to improve. I was mistaken. Therefore, because of the rigorous essay work each essay brought, I learned more about how to write different pieces and grow from my “failure”.
However, when it came time to write the essay, I was confronted with my old enemy, writing. Writing and I have a history, I have never enjoyed being in the presence of writing, due to its both mentally and physically taxing requirements. Despite our deeply rooted feud, there are times where I cannot simply dismiss writing, and generally with help such as guided activities, exemplars, and therapy; Writing and I can put aside our differences for a brief moment of time. One example of this is in my argument, In the beginning sentence I feel that I was able to reach what was expected of me by created a strong counter argument and quickly proving it wrong: “Some might argue that if an individual has grown fond of an illusion, then why wake them from that joy? Now, that is a fair point, but as we see in the book, if they wake up, they realize how unhappy they truly are.” As I face more and more of these assignments where I am forced to implement writing, I grow more accustomed to the process. Writing might not be my ideal major, but I understand its importance. While I dread typing a 5 page essays, I know they are coming. Better I struggle know and learn than struggle later and
In the course of this semester of writing, I grew more than I ever had in my ability to write well. I remember on the first day of class several other students were talking about how hard this writing professor is. I was a bit worried and even thought about switching to an easy professor for a guarantee A so I can get a 4.0. Now, I am grateful that I chose to decide to work hard for a 4.0 instead. Even though I may not get it, I am still glad I stayed because for once, I learned and became a better writer. I can see that my knowledge of conventions definitely improved from last semester. I really loved the feedback for my assignments, since it allows me to realize what I need to improve on and what I should keep doing. Unlike the previous semester, the writing professor only told us our grade on the very first assignment after two months. There were no feedback on how I could improve either, so I had no idea if I was having trouble with anything. Prior to this course, I always had trouble writing sentences and organizing them in such a way that flows and delivers my idea well. I also rarely outline or plan out how I will write a paper too, and even when I did, it was very vague. Out of the five learning outcomes, I grew the most in rhetoric knowledge and writing process from the reading responses and 4 assignment.
Over the course of Intro to College Writing I have written a total of three essays and turned in. These three essays consist of: Narrative, Profile, and Argumentative. My first essay was the Narrative in which I wrote about the night of my mothers arrest. With this essay. I as a writer was trying to convey the emotions I felt during the experience and describe the many atmospheres that occurred throughout the incident. The only memorable thing from this essay was figuring out how to end the essay in a way that wrapped the entire essay back up in a short meaningful, stylistic way. That I felt I did well with my last line being “That was the first time I had said “I love you” in well, I couldn't tell you.” Through writing that last statement I felt I summed up a struggling relationship I held with my mother sparring details that spanned over years into a simple sentence that echoed around the core concept. This was the only breakthrough I met as I wrote this essay recalling the night and describing my feelings flowed easily and I found myself done quickly. I only stopped to find a fancier word or write a sentence in a different way. Either making it longer, shorter or include more details. I had strong feelings that I communicated the entire situation in a comprehensible and touching way. Looking back on the essay there was much too be corrected as I did in my re-write such as: Organization, fragments, Contractions, comma splices.
At the beginning of the semester, I had a different idea of what is considered as good writing. In my first rough draft for my first essay, “Post-secondary education and cultural backgrounds”, I demonstrated mostly of my preconceived idea of what good writing is suppose to be. I tried to sound intelligent by asking rhetorical questions and using big words improperly. I noticed that there was no harmony and organization on my essay as a whole. I had no idea what MLA was. With the help of the Writing Center and my determination on continually revising my essay, my scattered ideas developed into cohesive statements. I learned the use of topic sentences, thesis, reference page, page number, and other given structures on writing a paper. As I tried to develop my skills to becoming a good writer, my writing and knowledge has slowly grew into the accepted academic text.
Education is very important to rethink help people to build opinions and points of view in life. Going to college is prove that your goals have been achieved in high school. That all that hard work will pay off in high school and that all your hopes and dreams will come true just as the quote says.But the reason why I chose this quote that it is true you do need to surviving high school so that college can see that you will be able to handle it. Imagine that you got you your degree on what you dream job was and you succeed in life as you dreamed. So what I be talking about in this essay is that college helps you getting your dream job, getting ready for adult life, be successful in life.
Throughout my whole educational career I have always struggled in writing. In 2nd grade I had to stay at after school for writing tutorials to improve on spelling, in 4th grade I never went to recess because I was unable to finish my writing prompts in during the dedicated timeline, and throughout high school I would have panic attacks when trying to write essay. Finally, during my junior year of high school I discovered I have dyslexia. Since then I’ve found different strategies when it comes to writing my essays to reduce the anxiety it gives me. During the course of this semester in your class I discovered what my main strengths and weaknesses are in all my essays. The strengths I have in all my essays are my theses and main points,
I have learned many things throughout the course of the term, including such things as: how to write an essay and how to improve on essays that I have already written, how to locate and composite better research through the use of numerous resources found at the campus library, the internet, and the “Common Sense” textbook, how to cite research, examples, and quotations properly within the contents of my research paper as well as document it accurately according to MLA standards. Through the exploration of the “Subjects and Strategies” textbook, I have learned nine different methods used when writing an effective essay and how the different writing styles affect the overall theme and tone of the essay when used properly. This past semester, I have encountered many difficulties when trying to write these essays, but through the use of the textbooks, the aide of the instructor, and once I was able to classify the different types of essays and styles, I found them possible to overcome.
The greatest difficulty that I came across doing the first essay was retracing the past, retracing the sadness. Having to bring back sad memories that made my life terrible at the time. Doing the essay, I learned that I have gone through a lot of crap. I was sinking in quicksand and now I stand on the quicksand like it is rock solid. I am proud of myself. I was able to turn my life around and be the person that I am today. I might have the potential to be a good writer someday. People compliment on my writing skills every now and then when I write something long. That makes me feel like a real student. I say that because an old History teacher of mine used to tell kids to be students when they were not doing their work.