“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go” (BrainyQuote). It is shown in this quote that when you begin writing you know nothing, you have to learn and develop a writing style as you write more, it takes time to become a good writer. Throughout my many years of writing, my writing styles have changed greatly. In middle school I had never written an essay based on a book. This year I have gone from being utterly confused on how to write an essay about a book, to having a full understanding of what I’m writing. This year is the year that I have grown more than any other, all because of my teacher, Mrs. Johnson. She has helped me become the best writer I can be this year. In this essay I will reflect on how my writing …show more content…
For example, when writing The Odyssey essay, I began not fully supporting my claim. I was not used to stating a quote to support my claim, and analyzing it fully because I had never done it before. Now, after writing essays and getting practice, I understand how to fully support my claims and quotes. I can find figurative language, tone, mood, conflict, etc., and I can explain why the author decided to use the quote in their writing. Another example is, using vocabulary in my essays to make it formal. In years past I had not used vocabulary in my writing. This year I used as many vocabulary words as I could. In each essay I wrote I tried to include at least twenty vocabulary words, some better than others. The vocabulary makes my essays easy to understand, they help my essay transition smoothly, and they add on to the formality of the essay I am …show more content…
A weakness I have is analyzing the quotes I choose to use in my body paragraphs. I have never been good at fully breaking down a quote and explaining its true meaning. For example, in The Odyssey essay, I analyzed my quotes in about 2-3 sentences. When rewriting the essay I quickly learned that my analysis needed to be much longer. By the time we wrote the Romeo and Juliet essay, I was able to create a full analysis, but I cannot fully breakdown the quotes I chose to use. I have a hard time getting below the surface and explaining the deeper meaning. Another weakness I have is grammar, I have also never been good at grammar. Whenever I get my graded essays back I discover many grammatical errors which could have been avoided. I make many common mistakes, like, not using a semicolon when needed, putting a comma in the wrong place, and I am very bad at sentence structure. Next year I will be sure to ask for help and work on my grammar. A strength I have in writing is my imagination, my imagination helps me visualize the book I am reading which helps me when I am writing. I look back on what I read in the book and I can visualize it so I can have a better time writing. Even though I am not very good at analyzing, my imagination makes it to where I can point out imagery and figurative language. I am sure that I have other strengths in writing but of course I
During the transition from a high school writer to a collegiate writer, my strength at understanding the basic principles of good writing has remained consistent. I grasp the ...
I am more knowledgeable about invention, arrangement, style, and delivery, all in which create a masterful piece of text. A few examples, I have learned to organize and construct my thoughts and ideas clearer. I have been taught to use stronger transitions and focus more on the delivery and content of the body element of essays. Further, the instructions and advice I have received throughout this term have influenced my understanding of the purpose of writing. My outlook on writing has been modified by shifting my perception of writing from, writing to prove I am a good writer by perceiving it as using “fluffy” or BIG words to impress my audience. I grew to understanding that good writing’s purpose is to engage the writer by mind-striking ideas and arguments, which therefore will prove and title me as a “good writer”.
Several people have trouble writing college level essays and believe that they are unable to improve their writing skills. In “the Inspired Writer vs. The Real Writer,” Sarah Allen argues how no one is born naturally good at writing. Sarah Allen also states how even professional writers have trouble with the task of writing. Others, such as Lennie Irvin, agree. In Irvin’s article “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?” states how there are misconceptions about writing. Furthermore, Mike Bunn’s article “How to Read Like a Writer” shows ways on how one can improve their writing skills. Allen, Bunn, and Irvin are correct to say how no one is born naturally good writers. Now that we know this, we should find ways to help improve our writing skills, and
Over my career of schooling my writing has changed dramatically at times and very little at others. Through my years of schooling people have determined my main weaknesses and strengths that I should work on with my writing. My biggest weakness is writing introductions and conclusions they must be so complicated and require so much thought to be defined as good. I excel at writing body paragraphs and explaining all the facts that back up your main ideas though.
When demonstrating my growth as a writer across several pieces, there are four main learning outcomes in which I have focused on. These include writing, reading, researching and reflecting. Within these learning outcomes, there are many different conventions and ways to understand my various projects and assignments as a writer. Throughout the English 1020 class, I have been able to observe not only my previous strengths, but myself growing as a writer by improving my ability to find strong sources as well as properly citing and explaining them, forming a more logical paragraph structure, and many more conventions when writing an assignment.
My relationship with writing has been much like roller coaster.Some experiences I had no control over. Other experiences were more influential. Ultimately it wasn’t until I started reading not because I had to read but because I wanted to, that's when my relationship reached change. I would have probably never cared about writing as I do today if it weren't for the critics in my family. When I was a child, my aunts and uncles always been in competition with who's child is better in school. I have always hated reading and writing because of the pressure to prove my family wrong was overwhelming for me. I had to prove them wrong and show them that I was capable of being "smart" which according to them was getting straight A's in all your classes.
The weakness I portray are very difficult for me to think of. I know that I have quite a few but to change them is something that I have not full conquered yet. A weakness I know I have is sentence structure. I am not very good at putting sentences together and making them strong and well developed. Another weakness that is obvious is word choice. I don't always know the exact wording to use in different parts of a paper, this makes it hard to understand sometimes not very well written.
With our first paper, a Literary Analysis, I wrote about the struggles of changing writing styles in college. I reflected on the types of writing we did in high school and how it shaped everyone to write in a passive tone to get more information across to the reader. With this paper, Dr. Schlueter let us write in our own style. This was a big change from what I was used to in high school. I was able to understand different types of writing though the research I performed to find out what kind of writer I was and how I should be writing in college. Without being given specific guidelines, besides “write about a memorable experience involving reading or writing”, I was forced to use my own creativity to write a paper that met the limited requirements (I use the word limited very loosely). This first paper really helped me figure out my style and made and impact on my other papers that I wrote for this class.
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.
Throughout my college career I noticed how different my form of writing has become. When I came to this realization, it made me wonder why this is so. Is it that I am simply just writing a lot more than I have in the past? Is it because I am simply maturing as a writer and combining all the techniques I am picking up on my own? All these questions, along with many more, rambled around my head sounding like a resounding gong struggling to find a true conclusion. As the school year went on I came to find out the truth about why my writing has changed, which brought me to a rewarding conclusion.
In this paper, I am to write about my strengths and weaknesses in writing. This is not an easy task for me because I have never considered myself a writer. Reading other peoples thoughts are activities that are more my speed. I simply have trouble putting my thoughts into writing. Since, I do not feel that I have many strengths, let's move on to my weaknesses.
One strength I had was the organization of the essay. My sentences I wrote were not all over the place each paragraph talks about one topic. One weakness I had with writing this essay was my writing style. I noticed that in this essay my writing style was a bit choppy. I should have read my essay out loud to see if it had a good flow between my ideas.
For example, since I was in high school I always had trouble of wring five paragraph written essays and dealing with the grammar issues. However, when I toke this ENG 101 composition class I worried the same issues. But, as I progress each day and month throughout the semester I come to relies that, I gotten better at writing five paragraph essays no problem even though, I had some troubles and struggles on the way. Now I know that my strength is writing five paragraph without worrying and my weakness is still might be a grammar as well as clarity/punctuation as my professor told me after grading my essay so far. Even though, I still struggle with my grammar I know that I can do it know and maybe someday I might be able to write essays without grammars. I have learned many things in my ENG 101 class this
Over the course of the semester, I feel that I have grown as a writer in many ways. When I came into the class, there were skills I had that I already excelled at. During my time in class, I have come to improve on those skills even more. Before I took this class, I didn’t even realise what I was good at. This is the first class where I felt I received feedback on my writing that helped me to actually review my work to see what areas I lacked in and where I succeeded.
Writing has never been my strong suit, although I am always writing. My biggest weakness is my ability to interpret text and analyze. During the analytical process, it is hard for me to really read between the lines if I cannot connect to the piece personally.