High school is supposed to be a one more step closer to college; it’s supposed to be preparing you for the future right? Wrong. My experience in high school was very different; I never quite fit in with anyone, the “friends” that I thought that I had used me for money. Let’s just say when I was a freshman I had a friend whom I knew from grade school, her name was Meghan Lawrence and she was the kind of person who I really believed I could tell her anything and she would keep it to herself. Once again I was proven wrong, I developed a crush on a boy and she knew that I had a crush on him; one morning before class both he and she went to the corner store, she thought it would be funny to tell him all about my crush, which he tortured me with, playing with my emotions, made me feel like he might actually like me back.
Writing has always been challenging for me because of the complexity of multiple rules. In the beginning of the semester I constantly worried about the structure of my writing and its overall material. In high school it was important for me to complete my essays by answering the questions that I was given, but in college, students go more into depth such as focusing in grammar, and well structured ideas that flow along with rich analytical content. After given my first assignment I was pushed to improve my overall work by focusing on organization and thinking more analytically. For example, the weekly readings and writing assignments helped me improve my overall work. Later on, these two techniques, organizing and analyzing work were useful
So far this year, I felt pretty satisfied with my progress this semester. I feel like I am slowly adapting to the new way papers and assignments are handled. All my college work depends solely on me now. No one is going to baby me anymore and whether I succeed or fail depends on how much effort I put into something. For the first time in my life I wrote a paper. Not just a five paragraph essay but actual pages, which is extremely challenging. It’s also been my first time studying for five hours straight so I can pass an actual test. I didn’t know I possessed this level of dedication, it’s probably because it isn’t free.
...t in general. I learned last year in AP World History, that there is no avoiding writing, in any subject and that the farther I go on in education, the more I will have to put together structured essays; I can’t avoid them forever. My previous English teacher even asked me if I was knew how much writing and critical thinking was involved with this class and at the time I wasn’t exactly sure that I could handle it. To be honest, I’m still not sure if can handle this class but I realized through all the struggling I had writing this essay that I need to improve my writing skills and I’m determined to do exactly that. Throughout the school year, I hope to eventually get over my fear of writing and sharing my writing with others and to be able to put pen to paper and write a composition that is not only cohesive but enjoyable and that I am proud, rather than, weary of.
How does an artist create a painting? He or she cannot simply look at a canvas and a picture appear. The artist must be equipped with proper tools to create a masterpiece: paint and brushes. The same can be said about writers. Writers are not born with the knowledge of writing an attractive paper. They must be given tools of writing and shown how to utilize them. Artists and writers without proper tools will be nothing more than blank canvases and empty pages. I used to be a blank canvas, but a teacher gave me the tools I needed, and now I am a polished portrait.
During the course first semester of freshman year in English 101, I have learned multiple foundations when it comes to writing. When I first entered college, the only knowledge when it comes to writing was gathering a bunch of information on a piece of paper. Knowing that writing wasn’t my strongest suit throughout my academic career, it was challenging for me. Going through my first college class, which was English 101, I realized that writing is more than just putting words on paper. I have learned the purpose of writing and the structure to make a solid concrete essay such as to create the thesis statement to acknowledge what the reader is going to read and a technique to help edit and limit word, together with discovering
When it comes to writing I have the hardest time in just getting started. I’m a horrible procrastinator and I overthink about my writing before I have even started a sentence. I worry that I will fail to get my point across or sometimes that I have a point at all. I worry that my writing is just a stream of consciousness on paper and that it will confuse any reader unfortunate enough to stumble across my meandering words.
As a frequent writer, I’ve noticed that writing is one of those factors that doesn’t come easily to me. Often, I find myself struggling to write papers or essays. Writing is something that I’ve never really put much interest or a lot of effort in; however, when it came to writing a paper as an assignment for a class, I always tried my best to write well. I’ve realized through my writing experience and knowledge that writing takes time and has to be worked on repeatedly before it is a polished paper. Writing takes a lot of thoughts and ideas along with revision and editing. One has to spend time on writing to make sure that it satisfies them or others.
When I began middle school I did not enjoy writing. I thought that it was a waste of time, but now I realize that it is a good method of getting my ideas and points across. Now, I enjoy writing and my writing has improved. I think I am good at writing research papers and papers about true stories and events. I could improve on writing fictional stories where I have to come up with my own stories and ideas. Now that my middle school career is coming to a close I look back on my analysis, argument, and narrative essays from the year.
My writing journey actually begins in Spanish, not English. I was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1994, and Spanish was my mother tongue. I took some English classes when I was four and I had picked up a few words here and there (apple, oddly enough, being the one that stands out the most in my memory) but I did not learn English until I moved to the United States when I was five. Learning English as a second language meant that I struggled to catch up to my peers, but I pulled it off.
I got a C on my first chemistry research paper. ‘It’s awkwardly written,’ my teacher scrawled on the paper in red ink.‘Most of your information is correct but it’s hard to read and harder to understand.’ I was furious. My writing was great as far as I was concerned. I aced all my English essays and she thought she could tell me my writing was awkward? The problem was clearly her. In my anger, I showed the paper to my brother- my brother the math and science whiz- and complained endlessly. “Well,” he said delicately “It is awkward. You’re writing too rigidly. You need to change the way you think.We all know you’re artistically creative. Now it’s time for you to be scientifically creative.”
I believe my way of writing is a mix of free style writing with a slight structured sense while expressing one thought onto paper. I would go about finding a main topic that I would like to write about and then layout the foundation of how I want the writing to form; this helps me envision my writing coming to life. This type of method is something I always do in order ensure I don’t lose my thoughts that I have previously came up with to go along with it. Over time I’ve learned that I wrote in the way I was thought in high school. This was an extremely strict way that doesn’t show the other forms of writing. This led to not me discovering my form of writing for a while. My train form of writing has changed from a strict concrete manner of
I’ve always had problems with my writing and I’m still having them. I can do any exercise in math but when it comes to write something my mind goes blank. With this course I can easily notice that my writing skills have improved. I took ENG 081 before this class and the teacher taught me completely different about some material we covered in this course.
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.
There are many different types of events that shape who we are as writers and how we view literacy. Reading and writing is viewed as a chore among a number of people because of bad experiences they had when they were first starting to read and write. In my experience reading and writing has always been something to rejoice, not renounce, and that is because I have had positive memories about them.