As I shoved my notebook into my backpack, I heard my writing fellow murmur something about an essay. I wasn’t worried. After taking every Advanced Placement English class my high school offered, I felt equipped to handle a simple essay until received Dr. Carver’s email with the prompt and instructions. I blinked at the screen and rubbed my eyes; thinking I had misread the message, I read it again. I was supposed to have the essay finished in approximately 42 hours, but I had never written a decent essay in less than four days. I was in a state of panic; all of my ideas had evacuated my imagination leaving me with a painful case of writer’s block. To me, most of good writing is good editing and proper editing requires having a window to forget your writing before returning to it: a window that 42 hours just couldn’t provide. By Tuesday, I was in full panic mode since I still couldn’t find the words to introduce myself on paper, so I decided to use my favorite trick for curing writer’s block: loud music. I sat at my desk and blasted my favorite tunes until the reverberations of the sound waves numbed my mind and reinvigorated my imagination. That’s when inspiration struck. I recalled a teacher referring to me as a veritable machine so turned the comparison into my essay, …show more content…
They invite students to alter their voice or imitate a particular style they find interesting. They show their students the beauty and joy in writing. They praise students for their successes and comfort students during their failures. They force students to seek out the unbridled joy of finding the perfect idea. They encourage their students to take risks, to break conventions, to add passion to their writing, and to play with rhetoric. They do this because even if the student’s experiment fails, the student will have learned the value of a dynamic writing style. They teach students to love
In the essay “Getting Started” by Anne Lamott. The author reaches out to her students and other fellow writers who struggle to overcome the infamous writer’s block. Thought out her paper she gives us hints and tips to train and prep us for our future papers. Her tips range from training you mind to prepare for a long and often strenuous essay, learning to take information in slowly to not overwork your brain and the last one always tell the truth in your essay. She threads through her essay that writing may be hard and seems like there is no silver lining but it’s not impossible to do. When done reading this essay I widely agree with Lamott’s writing ideas and tips they can be helpful for many struggling students. As one myself I found
Lamott suggests in “Shitty First Drafts” that many people imagine good writers as being able to miraculously put out a complete and polished piece of work in one sitting. She also plainly reminds the reader that this is an idealized fantasy. Writing is hard work, and it can be very intimidating. To overcome this, she offers the
The blinking computer cursor on an otherwise empty screen was the college version of the blank white page of my earlier years, before technology had taken us so far. But for me it was, in many ways, the same old problem. With early drafts of a paper rarely required, I came time and time again to a point where a significant portion of my grade rested on what was essentially a single night’s work. I usually left myself no option but to write in one long session on a computer - there weren’t enough hours remaining to compose a version on paper to be typed up afterward. And time and again, my method, such as it was, worked for me. I not only survived but prospered. But I sometimes wondered, and still wonder: this works, but am I progressing? Has my writing grown? Should it be possible to turn out an “A” paper in a night? What standards are being used to judge these papers? Do my desperate all-night writing sessions somehow, in ways I don’t understand, help me improve? How did I learn to write at a level that has helped me succeed up to this point?
Writing doesn’t come easily to me, which must make me a glutton for punishment. It has taken me years of training, learning to structure an essay and unlearning to begin again. Only since attending HSU am I realizing how exceptional my writing has become. Over the course of two semesters, I have seen my writing expand and grow. While I still adhere to the training I received in high school, I am excited to now take these tools and develop my own unique style in the years to come.
Over the past semester I have learned many things in my English class, educationally and through life lessons. Ms. Henry took the tedious, standard, subject of English and turned it into moral and intellectual lessons we can use in our daily lives. I latched onto the secret life of bees, serial, and the debate, out of the topics we went over this semester.
To be completely honest, this year has been nothing short of a disaster. Partially due to this class, which it is my fault for taking the class in the first place when I was obviously not qualified to take an AP Literature class. It started out fun, but became more and more stressful as the year went on. My mental capacity has reached its limit, and my physical health isn 't in the best condition either due to the late nights I have spent on homework. However, despite it all, I have learned a great deal from this class. Not only from the curriculum, but I have also learned some of my own limitations and realized some faults that I need to mend. This class tested my patience and my temper, which I had only discovered
Writing is a skill that not many people take the time to sharpen over the course of their lives because many people don’t believe it carries much weight, as least in a professional sense. And it is a very hard skill to acquire, especially if somebody doesn’t have a natural talent for it to begin with, or just simply isn’t interested. Throughout this quarter I shed the skin of the formulaic writing that I had used all throughout high school and replaced it with a more creative, professional style. Not only has this enabled me to make better, stronger arguments, it taught me how to find flaws in other people’s as well, making me both a better reader and a better writer.
While in English 111 we completed an annotated bibliography, about 5 or so quizzes, a group project, and three different types of papers. It is my hope that while you are reading this letter, you will gain an understanding of the work I have completed in my English 111 class. Below I discuss the three different papers and classwork assignments I completed in my English 111 at Germanna Community College.
I stared at the blinking cursor, unbelieving at what I had just done. I was indeed done; done with a paper I agonized over for 6 hours. The paper was due in a scant 4 hours and I had all week to do it. The radio had stopped working because my brother got on the Internet and thus cut off my connection. That was the least of my problems working on this paper. I got it done, though. My life changed with one trip of a teacher to the chalkboard and one phrase, narrative essay. God, I hate narrative essays.
First thing I experienced walking into English 101 as a freshman was anxiety and nervousness. Going through high school I was never really good at English and having English 101 as my second class as a freshman was eye opening. I have learned to use proper technique while writing papers, looking through my paper for grammar errors and also that it is always good to ask for help when confused and if you are stuck on a paper.
Throughout this fall semester, I have learned many things. Before this class, I have never had to buckle down and plan out my writing so tediously. The many outlines, rough drafts, and final drafts have crafted me into a much better writer than I would have ever expected to become. While I have always considered English as one of my strong subjects, through this class I have learned that English has many more components than I originally thought. One of the most substantial of these components is a transitional sentence and through this class and the writing practice it has brought me, I have learned how to properly write them.
Once I reached high school my love for writing dimmed. I was taught a formula on how to write the perfect essay. The dreaded five paragraph essay was engraved in my brain: An intro with a hook, a thesis, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Constantly being told my creativity wasn’t formal, so when I wrote papers it was more facts and evidence and less short stories and experiences. My writing became dull to me and reading over my papers and stories was a dread because I could see the drastic amount of lost creativity. Although I still received high praise it felt as if the papers I was writing wasn’t
Reflection involves stages of critically analysing experiences of practice in order to elucidate, examine, assess, and so inform learning about practice (Reid, 1993). Boyd and Fayles (1983) conceptualised reflective learning as the skills acquired by an individual to internally inspect and investigate an area of concern that is most likely provoked by an experience to generate and explain its meaning in relations of self, which may lead to an outcome of an improved theoretical perception. Both of the definitions give a clear definition to view reflection both as an approach to gain knowledge and as an approach to improve practice (Schutz, 2007). Moreover, Boyd and Fayles (1983) stressed that this improvement may be entirely established on an individual’s personal level of involvement. The evolution of Western philosophy involves the reflection as a notion (Schutz, 2007). In addition, Scutz (2007) suggested that the practice of reflection approaches plays a significant role in educating nursing undergraduates and health care experts to incorporate the skills of reflection in their practice communities as part of their daily practice at work.
At the start of this class, I made a goal to develop my writing skills to better prepare me for other courses for my degree. I knew English 106 would be different compared to any other English or college courses that I have taken. I knew English 106 environment will let me grow in diverse writing dimensions. My long serving years of experience in the military has exposed me to many cultures around the globe. In just seven weeks of the course, I have seen some improvement in my writing. This course has afforded me with several techniques that have made writing not only a little bit easier but also more in-depth resulting in a higher level of academic writing versus my normal military style writing. Now I understand the writing process and
On the first day of class, I was not confident in my writing. I was in honors english last year, however, I did not do too well on essays. Being that I never received an A, I assumed my writing was not as good as it should be. Now, I earned a 6, almost 7, on the 9 point scale and am beginning to feel more confident. I do feel that I have been appropriately challenge this semester. I did not find any of the assignments to be too easy. I have definitely felt challenged this year, I have learned multiple techniques that I never knew prior to taking this class. As a whole, I am happy with the experiences I was provided in this class. The last essay I wrote, I was given the opportunity to meet with Mr. Perry after school one on one for help which was extremely beneficial. Also, I appreciate the fact that Mr. Perry reads our entire essay commenting on what went wrong or suggests ways to improve it. Revising essay really helps not only my grade, but also my overall understanding of what I did incorrectly. Overall, I am extremely happy I took this class and I continue to benefit in multiple ways.