“As a student, I write for multiple purposes. Purpose is the key for how my thoughts are dictated on this blank white sheet.” After writing this in my in-class journal discussing my transition from five-paragraph writing to actual formation of thoughts without a specific format, I realized that this process was a larger undertaking than I originally thought. Through endless amounts of essay writing the personal academic improvements that have taken place this quarter are indescribable in comparison to any other academic feat made in my brief but fulfilling college career.
As a writer, I realized coming into college that my writing was not necessarily bad by any means, but instead extremely uninteresting. After leaving the public secondary education system, I though that I had a strong foundation in writing, which I did, but it did not hit me until my first week of my writing class that I was a “formulaic” writer. I would follow the typical five paragraph essay format that I had been given since eighth grade and wring it out until it was dry. After getting every last drop of the benefits of a typical five paragraph essay, I panicked after stepping into college and thought that my writing process would only have to change by suspending my thoughts over time and sentences, allowing single thoughts to melt onto the page line after line. For some reason, I thought that I could distract my professors from my weakness, but this ploy eventually ruined me, and if anything, this suspension of my thought did nothing but accentuate my faults.
As a serious academic, admitting defeat was hard, but I needed to bite the bullet and ask for assistance. After coming into my writing class and attending my first peer editing workshop, I felt li...
... middle of paper ...
... about a reflection of a moment of our lives? The redundant nature of the writing began to get to me. You would think that the same prompt of “reflection” would make me care less about the assignments, but instead I would worry more about keeping my writing fresh and exciting. If anything, I felt like my writing was part of the film Inception. Instead of a dream, within a dream, within a dream, I had an essay, about an essay, within an essay.
Through the duration of this writing course and the work put in academically, I feel the growth illuminating the keystrokes as I type this essay. I feel as though I am able to tackle more complex prompts and allow myself to stay much more open minded through the academic writing process. As I learn more styles of writing and continue to gain experience as an author and an academic, the process will only be that much easier.
Receiving the opportunity to check one of my completed compositions created leverage to strengthen elements of my oeuvre. This reflection consists of a process of dissection, scrutiny, and close reassessment. As a writer in the editing and revision stage, I examined particular features throughout my essay including background information about the topic, credible evidence to support overall claims, and grammar and sentence structure.
Transitioning from high school to college can be overwhelming. Before English 1301, I thought that I did not have to worry about being prepared for college. I quickly realized that my little background in writing essays was not going to be enough for college. Writing is not just something that I will use in English classes. In college, I will have to use effective writing skills in all my classes to complete research papers, essay tests and communicate to professors. Throughout my education, writing strategies persisted to be something that did not come easy to me. I dreaded writing because I could never find ways to get my thoughts down on paper. Ironically, a class that petrified me due to the amount of writing that was required ended up helping me in so many ways. English 1301 and my professor prepared me so much for college and real life.
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.
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.
To begin this reflection, conduct an inventory of all the writing you have done for this course, looking both forward and backward at your progress in the course. Once you have done so, write a reflective piece about where you stand at midterm and where you’d like to go during the second half of this course. Reflect on what you’re learning about your writing process, your strengths as a writer, and your preferences and writing habits. Be specific, provide details and descriptions, and explain your reasoning throughout this brief reflective section.
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 ...
While being enrolled in my English 112 DL07 composition class, I have faced some challenging situations. For instance, writing a rhetorical analysis is not as straightforward as one would imagine. There are several strategic techniques that need to be implied; there is also planning, note-taking, forethought, and prewriting. On the other hand, I overcame this tough situation by taking the appropriate amount of time to get my thoughts and ideas together to create a rough draft. I believe I do fully understand what is academically expected of me for this term. This may sound like sarcasm, but it is the truth, I enjoy writing, and analyzing essays. Writing is a passion and stress reliever to me there is nothing better than writing an essay. Achieving
I did not have a firm writing philosophy before this semester, but I to some degree I understood the importance writing can have on a situation. Now I understand that writing has two outcomes: gaining support or losing support. When writing an essay it is best if the writing is as specific as possible. This way the audience is hopefully not left with a confused opinion about the topic. Since the beginning of the semester I have put a conscious effort to change my writing style. Instead of the box format that is learned in high school I try to use a more graceful approach while still being organized. Also, I evaluate the credibility of a source before I use the information to support my thesis and understand the roles of using ethos, pathos, and logos. My assignments are now written with more developed thought by elaborating on ideas in the body paragraphs. By participating in the assignments throughout the semester I have accomplished, to different extents, the objectives for the English Composition 101 course. My writing has improved in multiple areas such as knowing who my audience is, and how writing drafts and making revisions help me evaluate the effectiveness of my essay. I am also aware that academic writing differs from day-to-day writing because for academic writing I need to present the most credible evidence in an organized format. Furthermore, I now can effectively evaluate my writing to know where I can improve.
The thoughts running around in my head were telling me that this essay might be a little better than the pre-assessment. After all, Mrs. Robinson had proclaimed she graded harder to teach us, but there were still doubts in my head. I thought to would write something personal, since that was what I was used to and it worked well for me. Upsettingly, I spent time on this essay but didn’t use all the resources to my benefit. I didn’t read it aloud after being finished and go back and check to see what I wrote made sense. Figured that out later
When I am assigned to write an essay, the first thing I do is panic. I panic because I always seem to run into the same problems with my writing process. I have no central idea. I have no clue what I actually want to write about. When I was younger, I always started by making a web or an outline because thats what my teachers encouraged me to do in school, but I don’t do that anymore. Now I sit in front of my laptop, I take a deep breath, close my eyes, gather my thoughts, and type. I just let my thoughts flow onto the page. When I don’t feel the pressure of writing to an audience, my writing is completely different than it is when I am writing something that I know my professor or peers will read. As I am writing this exact sentence, I don’t quite know where I am going with it. My writing process is unorthodox and unorganized, but it is what I do everytime. When I stop trying to follow the linear model of writing, explained by Nancy Sommers as the process of forming an idea, writing about it, then revising afterwards, I feel that I am more capable of discovering something meaningful within my words. When I am forced to write a thesis statement and base my paper solely on it, it doesn’t come out as good as I think it should. It decreases the potential for my ideas to grow and discoveries to be made. It limits me to a single statement and narrows my thoughts, preventing me from discovery.
Writing an essay often seems to be an overwhelming task for many individuals. For students like myself, who came from another country, writing can be more difficult and challenging. It can be very frustrating to fully comprehend an idea, and being unable to express it proficiently in English can be excruciating. For these reasons, assistance is often needed to become an effective writer. The focus of this paper is to demonstrate the process on how I organized and accomplished my most recent essay, and to identify the struggles I encountered when writing the paper. In addition, plans on how to improve my next paper, based on the teacher’s feedback from my previous essay, and topics including methods on how instructors can help develop my essay
Relief, worry, and doubt are only three words that run through my head as I write this final exam for my English Composition class. As I entered the class I felt as though it was going to be an easy A for me, because I did so well on my COMPASS test I thought I would do well in this class. Then I quickly realized I am not as good at writing as I thought I was. This class is intended to turn a not so good writer into a decent writer and to enhance the skills of writing all together. As was determined by my instructor and peers I am one who needed plenty of guidance throughout this class. As I went through each writing project I seemed to have the same errors or mishaps in each project. Run-on sentences, quotes and paraphrases, and
On a typical hot day, the twenty-eight of August was the first day of the fall 2016 semester. I was excited to attend my English Composition I and meet my instructor. I was able to write an essay without any struggle as I learned before in the English language Institute of Akron university. However, writing an academic essay needs a lot of practice, knowledge and that what I needed in order to improve my writing skills. As an ELI student I was able to write a formal essay with fundamental requirements but without sense of creativity. I started to learn new ways of writing essays, used my imagination and developed creative new methods to attract the reader 's attention. There are many aspects to write college level essays that I was not aware
Writing is an important part of everyone’s life, whether we use it in school, in the workplace, as a hobby or in personal communication. It is important to have this skill because it helps us as writers to express feelings and thoughts to other people in a reasonably permanent form. Formal writing forms like essays, research papers, and articles stimulates critically thinking. This helps the writer to learn how to interpret the world around him/her in a meaningful way. In college, professors motivate students to write in a formal, coherent manner, without losing their own voice in the process. Improving your writing skills is important, in every English class that’s the main teaching point; to help students improve their writing skills. Throughout my college experience I have acknowledge that