A Paper Dungeon The sound of blades colliding echoes through the dark caverns. Monstrous shrieks of pain and deafening battle cries all combine to create the sound of the battle. A lone adventurer stands stalwart in the face of evil, parrying blows and returning with lightning speed to end even the stoutest of enemies. He continues to fight even though he is clearly outnumbered. His valiant hold of his position forges fear in the very souls of some of his opponents, but not all are so easily disheartened. The forces of darkness continued to rise against the single man, and he fought as hard as he could and it seemed he could go on forever. Suddenly he is struck from behind, and while not falling there, he is severely weakened. Severing the heads of three creatures at once he only creates three more spaces for the endless horde. He knows, deep inside, that he can not win, yet he continues. Another blow, and another, continue to land, causing pain and fatigue. He is now completely overwhelmed. With a final swing, the last enemy he will ever defeat falls to the ground. Another beast steps forward, disregarding the skull of its former fellow soldier that it just stepped on and crush. The adventurer braces for the final swing that would end his life. The sounds of metal crashing into the stone floor can be heard and dreadful cheers emanate from the cave opening and throughout the forest. While he may have fallen, not all adventurers could have made it this far, but even a hero comes from humble beginnings. Similar thoughts ran through my head as I walked into my second trimester of Honors American Literature. I knew trying to secure a decent grade in this class would be a battle. Listening to what tasks we would have, what we wo... ... middle of paper ... .... I walked through a final dark passage and emerged back into the light of sun in a tranquil forest. My journey was all but finished now. During my quest through Honors American Literature I have grown, gained, hated, and lost. My comprehension of grammar, sentence format, MLA format, and diction has improved greatly. Through tests and essays all of these skills have been tested for great reason. My reading and understanding of text, along with group interaction and peer editing have all been bettered throughout this advanced class. While the trials may have been tough, the work challenging, the dedication needed time consuming, my experiences that could have only been found in Honors American Literature, have shaped me into the much better writer I am today, and, with my adventure completed for now, I rest, in wait for the next great adventure to come my way.
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. Because of my wonderful experience in Critical Writing, my love for reading and writing was renewed and my confidence in my abilities as a writer had been restored. I decided to take a second chance on English by declaring Literature and Writing as my majors.
In preparation for the Advanced Placement Literature and Composition exam, high school students must read many kinds of literature during the year-long course to familiarize themselves with different time periods, movements, philosophies, and genres. Advanced Placement students must learn to think critically, and be ready to find, analyze, and express literary connections through written analysis. The biggest challenge of teaching and learning Advanced Placement English is the difficulty covering the entire scope of literature in two semesters. Twentieth century literature often gets neglected. The pace of the curriculum can also limit the creativity of lesson planning and evaluation. Many teachers rely heavily on lecture, discussion, and a traditional analysis paper.
My development as a writer has flourished throughout this semester. The first week of this fall semester started out with writing responses from our readings in the textbook. Looking back through and analyzing my reading responses at the semester to now; I noticed a substantial improvement in not only my grammar skills, but also my summarizing, and in-depth studying of writing adeptness. Another way I have progressed this semester is the vocabulary of my writing has significantly improved and become more scholarly. Another advancement I noticed was that the content of my work has matured, along with my organizational adeptness.
Transitioning from writing five paragraph essays to a five page paper was definitely a challenge. In writing 121, we spent our time reading, discussing and analyzing complex stories in particular Heart of Darkness. We analyzed not only Joseph Conrad’s novel; but also, Anton Chekhov’s short stories on characterization. After reading these short stories from Chekhov, we wrote our 100 minute timed write; in addition, I wrote my best other essay about poverty. This class has given me a glimpse of the writing expected of in college. Although it posed challenges for me, it has helped me improve my skills as a writer.
As the semester finally approaches the finish line, I revisit my past work to compare and contrast how this class has developed me into a successful writer at the college level. Throughout the year my writing style has developed and become broader as I have learned how to incorporate more of my personal views as well as reliable, unbiased information. This portfolio is a representation of how many things I have learned along the way while being an English 102 student.
Although it has only been 2 weeks that I have been attending in this writing course, I have already expanded my knowledge greatly and gained plenty of courage in a very little time period. I am not an avid reader, nor do I ever bother to take my own time to go out and pick up or buy a book, but throughout the weeks, I have been assigned to read a new article every week, and each article has made me realize the power and potential reading has to a single person. How it can change someone’s life drastically. I mostly enjoyed reading “The Importance of the Act of Reading” by Paulo Freire, “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, and “All Writing is Autobiography” by Donald M. Murray.
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.
Over the course of this semester, I have progressed as a writer. Picking up new skills and dropping old bad habits has transformed me into a much better writer than when I entered the English 101. Entering this class, the only English classes that I took were mandatory high school classes all four years. In these classes, however, content was focused on reading novels, poems, and literature. There was usually only one major writing assignment each year, which was a research paper on a topic that was given by our teachers. Although there was some writing involved in these classes, most of the class time was spent on improving my reading and comprehension skills. A small part of the class was given to improve my skills as a writer and even a researcher. In English 101, however, most of the class time was spent on writing and more specifically, academic writing. This includes doing proper research, picking a worthy topic to write about, correctly analyzing sources, and developing a well-rounded, complete paper. I have progressed a writer over the semester by effectively integrating and analyzing sources better, and being more specific with my words.
English has never been my best subject. Reading books can be exciting, but the writing aspect of English can be dreadful. Somehow, however, I passed all my advanced English classes with at least a B, and my teachers always considered me to be “above average.” My impartiality toward English shifted to an indifference near the end of my high school career; my indifference then shifted to appreciation. This appreciation is attributed to American Studies and Honors Writing, the most difficult English classes at Belleville East Township High School. American Studies and Honors Writing have strengthened my writing skills beyond what I believed possible. I still do not believe that I am the best writer, and English may never be my best or favorite
As a student, I have learned many different skills that I will take with me throughout my journey from this course. We have traversed many different types of writing styles, which any college student, or any person for that
Throughout this semester I have learned many ways of writing through two main essays literacy narrative and comparison and contrast. These two essays have taught me how to correctly fix my comma splices, thesis statements, and capitalization. I have engaged in numerous learning material during this summer class. Many times when I thought it would be hard to work on those three developments I never gave up. I gain more positive feedback from my teacher because he pointed out most of my mistakes I made on both literacy narrative and comparison and contrast essays to help me understand what is it that I need to work on. My development as a writer became stronger.
After reading our mentors notes and analyzing what we have learned through this term, I have read all assignments that were submitted before our midterm exam. This gave me chance to follow up with how I advanced my writing skills from the beginning. As it was interesting to see how I can point out the missing qualities of these essays, it was nice to see our mentor’s notes justifying my points.
This introductory year in English has resulted in various mindsets; some may interpret the curriculum as demanding and highly unpleasant while others relished this year as optimal. Based on my experiences in Mrs. Cefalu’s class, this has been the crème de la crème of the entire English curriculum. Essentially, my freshman year has vastly outcompeted all my former English classes by interminable miles. I would foremost endeavor to greatly thank Mrs. Cefalu for innovating an unorthodox, amusing experience for me and every soul fortunate to experience this class. For the last two years, my teachers rather performed one, sole task: assert their English syllabus rather than express it. They strangely lacked a key fragment that enhanced learning
Freshman year is where the foundation of a long lasting education begins. With english as a core class, the subjects we’ve covered have given a great base to build off of, especially as honors students. However, things weren’t always easy: critical thinking and extra effort was needed to accommodate for challenging concepts. Through it all we prevailed and have learned a multitude of new topics. We covered an expanse of different types of literature and dabbled into the world of grammar. Here’s my rendition and perspective on what I’ve learned in honors English 9.
As my English 101 class comes to an end, I have realized how much I have transformed as a writer. In this essay, I am going to explain what I realized my strengths and weaknesses are as a writer and how they have manifested themselves throughout the quarter. I was skeptical at first coming into this class knowing that English takes formidable work and dedication, but I am very proud of the progress I have made. We completed a great deal of work throughout the quarter; from grammar exercises, summary reviews, and two challenging essays. Throughout the quarter I found myself improving in each category. As a writer, my skills and confidence have developed into more clarity and thought, something I have always wanted to be, as a result of a well constructed class that led to a superb educational experience.