Reflection In College Writing

By writing down student ideas and perspectives in essays, even in non-academic disciplines, they hone their own expression skills, identify patterns, observed events and consider possible solutions. The skills we are learn for college and university can help us in career, as well. Reports for office jobs, essays for scientific journals and many other careers require us to know academic writing. Learning it early and getting lots of practice is a good way to get ahead in our

Multiple essays have been formulated during the duration of Composition 1. These essays have taught me an important lesson about my writing, failure is acceptable in order to grow. On the other hand, I made an important discovery last year that I want to study journalism and advance further in that field after college. From taking journalism classes, to blogging in my spare time, to always getting an A on my papers, I thought I had no room to improve. I was mistaken.

Writing can be a challenge to foreign students, but taking the writing courses and understanding the writing process are very important and stepping stone for further education. During my EN 101A semester, I had worked particularly on the use of the writing process particularly on writing a vibrant thesis statement which offers a concise solution to the issue being addressed. I had struggled to improve my expository writing through working at the writing center. In addition, I had also worked on improving my critical thinking which helped me to develop analytical skills in an effort to add my own thoughts, contemplate a particular topic and analyze important issues. My weakest area in essay development during the semester was identifying a clear thesis statement which was crucial part of the writing process.

Throughout high school writing papers and essays were very difficult for me, almost every assignment I would seek help from others. Whether it was from my fellow students, family members, or teachers, their advice helped me tremendously. My senior year I took a Creative Writing course, which I believe helped me a lot, because I would struggle to write a paragraph, but now I can put a paper together. Coming into college I knew writing was a major skill to conquer, but I still feel like I can improve a lot yet. Furthermore, my critical reading skills need much improvement, I have no problem reading a passage or book; however, I do have trouble with comprehending what I read.

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. The evalua... ... middle of paper ... ...ough my writing, not only as a writer but also as a person. As I look back on my first semester of English at Tri-C, I can tell that I have grown in my writing ability. The changes that I have made will impact my writing style and techniques for the rest of my time in college and life.

Rainwater, I wanted to know more about the teaching of writing. I interviewed her for the next assignment, the interview, I wanted to learn a little bit more about how she facilitated her writing classroom. Because of the broad range of topics that we had discussed in the class, as well as the questions that I had thought about during the other days in my practicum experience, I asked questions that were somewhat general. Ms. Rainwater, because of answering me through email, did not elaborate as much as I hoped she would. Due to both of these things, I found it hard to really narrow the focus of the assignment and so I struggled with the first draft of paper.

I used listing while writing my classify and divide essay and I believe it helped me to stay on topic and keep my writing organized. I used an outline to help me write my compare and contrast essay, and while it did help with organization, it was more complicated than the listing technique. Before this class, I understood purpose was important; however, during this class I have discovered that putting more focus on purpose can result in a more interesting thesis and paper. I have learned to think about purpose before writing my essay, once I have narrowed my topic I ask myself why would anyone want to read my essay. Consideri... ... middle of paper ... ...e in my daily writings such as, e-mails, letters, notes and discussion board responses to practice what I have learned.

One day Professor Braun said to me that I have to not only write about the facts on my response, I also have to add more of what I think, add more to the conversation. So I did that for my final response, while I was agreeing with Lessig Lawrence I added more of what I think, I added examples expressing my point of view and the solution that I think was the best. So through this response I learned to express myself better adding more to conversation, adding examples and making my point clear. While I was writing my learning narrative. I learned how to think carefully about my ideas and how to organize it well in my paper.

I managed to get a lot of help on how to be a better writer. At first, I find it hard, but I managed to annotate what I thought was important for every single paragraph. Later on, I wrote about its significance. This type of method is the “Stop and Respond” method that my professor taught to me and my classmates. It is a useful tool, not only for my English class, but for my other classes as well.

As I look back into my high school years, I thought I wrote papers well. But then coming into a college environment, my papers were mediocre. By overlooking at my past papers, I found that they were unorganized, sloppy and had bad use of diction. From now on, I will use the tools I learned in English 1100-40 as a foundation for the future papers I intend on writing in college. Following the criteria of organizing ideas so that they flow, impacting the reader with diction and also by being creative, will help become an ideal writer.