Writing is something I always struggled with throughout my academic career. Whether it is for the English class or any other liberal arts class, I have a tendency to deviate from the main task of writing. This semester I took a FIQWS Composition class which helped me explore the unexplored areas of my academic writing. There are three main essays Literacy narrative, exploratory essay and Critical Researched analysis each improved my writing tremendously. In the first day of class, I was surprised to see the amount of work is expected from me because there were only three major essays and three reflections. I thought the workload would not be so intense because of the limited assignments. However, as the Semester has progressed, the work required …show more content…
In the reflections, we had to choose two rhetorical terms and discuss how we used the terms in our writing pieces. I learned the meaning application of the terms such as exigence, audience, stance, purpose and genre. In my reflections I mostly used audience and purpose because they were well suited for context of my papers. However, I also used exigence in my literacy narrative reflection because my background and academic experience promoted to me write about the struggles of the immigrant students. Similarly, I learned rhetorical strategies such ethos, logos and pathos and their usages in academic writing. In the final research paper, I tried to make use of the three strategies to make my paper more appealing to the readers. We did exercise in class in which we had to choose a rhetorical strategies that we think we are weak in and write a paragraph using the rhetorical strategy. I wrote about logos and found the exercise extremely useful in implementing the skills into the …show more content…
In writing this essay, I struggled in following the instructions. In the rough draft, my paper was mostly composed of decline in quality of life and housing in Harlem. I read nine articles from the course packet that address the pre-era of gentrification and spent most of time of essay discussing the housing conditions and health problems. In doing so, I lost the control and flow of my ideas, thus staying away from my thesis. Thanks to Professor Poltrack feedback, I managed to focus on one article and convey the overall message more effectively. In this essay, I also made use of print technologies by attaching a photographed evidence of gentrification. This made my piece stronger because it gave the readers a visual of how gentrification is affecting the long term Harlemites. In both the research paper and exploratory essay, I learned the systematic application of citation through citation tools and MLA regulations. For both essays, I had work cited page in MLA-8 format. The Purdue Owl website helped me learn the citation rules while the databases allowed me to select citation style and automatically generate citation for particular
Writing essays was never my forte, it just never came easy to me like it would to others. Since other subjects came easy to me and I had to focus more than others on writing, I had a negative attitude toward the process as a whole. During this summer semester, I was able to grow as a writer, and gain a more positive attitude toward how I write and a better feel for writing in college. Writing a paper is a process in which there are many different stages. In high school I would never write outlines or any sort of pre planning work. Other struggles I encountered in my writing were my theses, and framing quotes.
Unit 1 taught me to focus on each step in the writing process. Approaching the task
Writing a decent essay can be nerve racking, time consuming, and can be accompanied by many trial and errors such as an art project. First you have to generate an idea, which can be the biggest challenge of them all. Then you have to decide on what details to incorporate and the placement for it. You begin to throw colors and shapes together in hopes that it will transform into a pleasing design. This all takes time, being challenged to create artwork, whether it be an essay or a painting, in sixty minutes becomes even more nerve racking and mind boggling. After last week’s timed writing practice, I was able to experience the dreadful event of producing a piece of artwork, which in my case was to deliver an essay,
This class taught me that I am a writer, that I can write interesting things and that I can enjoy the writing process! I experienced two major changes during this class. The first was that I discovered my motivation for writing (which was new to me) and the second is that I became comfortable with revision. Having these two new perspectives changes my personal relationship to the art of writing, which is great for me. I think it will allow me to give my students a more authentic, rich writing experience.
My portfolio will demonstrate the skills and writing techniques I have developed and honed while taking the course English 1010 at the University of Memphis. Some of the techniques and skills I have learned include how to write with different persuasive strategies on the audience and how to incorporate critical thinking into my work. As well as these skills I have learned how to apply an effective composing process to my writing and have fine tuned my writing abilities. Writing with different styles on different topics has improved the way I approach writing papers. These styles helped me learn quickly, therefore making me a better writer and student at the same time.
In my writing I have seen large amounts of growth, I have learned how to better introduce all my sources as well as how to flow my ideas, as well as how unnecessary the five-paragraph essay is. Wring has become easier for me due to the fact that I now I feel understand how to write. I understand that there must be a “they say” and an “I say” in my writing. There has to be an equal balance to everything I write. For example I cannot just write a piece all about my opinions as well how, I cannot just write a piece about what others are saying without explaining the purpose of it all. English 5A has helped me overly improve my writing skills and has shown me new very important skills on how to be a better writer.
I am excited to share with you the contents of my website. This website contains an overview of the progression of my writing throughout the semester. Please take time to read over my sample work and my reflection upon it to date. Thank you for your time and I hope you enjoy it.
After reading the two pieces from Yancey, and Royster and Kirsch, I thought for a while about what the word ‘reflection’ means to me. I have never looked at the word in relation to my writing. Writing has never been a strong (or favorite) suit of mine. I have always despised re-reading/ revising my paper, for the fear of not wanting to seem inadequate to other writers (I would compare it to that of hearing your own voice on a recording, thinking, “Do I really sound like that?”). Besides writing, I would best describe reflection as looking at the past, and analyzing your feelings during that period as well as your current feelings for what took place. I used to not use reflective practices in my daily life, but this year I made it a goal
this area but I’m going to improve on it. The process of using multiple drafts has
The key is to understand what ethos, pathos, and logos are. Then I learned to find the sentences in the article and sort them into three parts. Analyzing the rhetorical techniques can improve my writing skills and my essays can be more credible when I need to persuade readers. Compared with the rhetorical analysis essay, the argumentative essay is harder and more complex. I should state my opinion and find enough reasons to support it. The most important thing in writing an argumentative essay is rebut the opposite opinions strongly. In this case, the rhetorical techniques I learned before helped me a lot to make my essay reasonable. The summary-response essay is different from those two kinds of essays. I could not mention any of my opinions, but had to summarize all the important information in the article. Then, I had to mention something impressive the article and express my feeling and views in the response. Using good transitions were required when I wrote the last sentence in the summary or the first sentence in the response.
During this fast paced eight weeks writing course, I have learned an endless amount of information that would benefit me throughout my entire life. First, I have learned that in order to produce a well written paper, I most first find a topic that I am passionate about. Writing about things that I have a passion for have helped me write more efficiently. I no longer spend unnecessary time figuring out what I want my message to be, the words flow naturally. Second, I have learned that writing is all about structure and tone. I now pay close attention to make sure that my paragraph has a topic and concluding sentence and make sure to write for my target audience. Third, I have learned to believe in the way I write because I have notice that
When joining this online class, I thought I knew everything there was to know about English and the writing process. My previous English class focused solely on the process of writing well-structured, five-paragraph essays. I believed that this course would be somewhere along those same lines. I have always struggled with writing papers, so taking this class made my previous English class look like a walk in the park. However, this course has taken me out of my comfort zone and has helped me improve my writing significantly through assigned essays and various mini assignments. As a writer, I now feel confident in developing a strong thesis statement, successfully integrating sources and quotes in my writing to help prove a point, and using
Upon signing up to go to Havana, Cuba with the Education Studies Department of Spelman College, I knew I was guaranteed to gain life long experiences and tools. However, I did not realize the depth and quality of those tools. Although, I have have traveled abroad before -- I have never used scotopic lens to directly focus on the needs of others. Instead, I most often use photopic lens, as in the United States, opportunity is portrayed to be so apparently bright that you have to find the darkness. For example, when a privileged American person is acting entitled and like the world around them is falling apart (even though it is a minuscule problem), one would say, "You have it so good! Think about all the children in Sudan who are sleeping
Looking back, I can see where my worries and nerves were justified, and are now aware of what needs to be done to complete the course and become a Trainee Assistant Practitioner.
Reading and writing are skills I feel I have learned well enough to get through my education thus far. When I was learning how to read and write, I struggled a bit with the reading aspect. I honestly cannot remember much about my learning process with these skills, but I feel they were always average or above. I remember my parents and teachers were more focused on my learning style and process rather than a specific subject. I was always struggling with my behavior and focusing in class due to my ADHD. I never accepted the fact that I had ADHD until I was graduating high school. Throughout my elementary education my parents and teachers were always pushing me to go into separate classrooms for tests and activities where there would be less