Reflective Essay on College Writing

I am excited for college English in just a semester I have learned valuable reading and writing skills, I am hoping to learn a lot more new skills in my previous courses. New learning will arrive, I believe that with the college professors’ ideologies and with my hard work I will be able to become a great reader and writer. I need to leave high school’s English ideology behind and keep discovering new forms of reading and writing. I am a simple ordinary reader and writer but I am in college and I will keep improving.

I did not spend as much time proofreading as I should have. I thought through writing it on word that most of my m... ... middle of paper ... ...ad over it for me to check for grammatical errors. After finishing the essay I would rate this essay as not my best but not my worst. This essay was challenging, but also made me see things differently in the way of an advertisement. Through this class and my previous experiences I’ve learned to spend more time on each step of the writing process instead of rushing through.

Although I am not necessarily striving for perfection (I don't dream of being the next Mark Twain or F. Scott Fitzgerald), improving my personal best is what I am invariably working towards. This year in English 101 has served as a very significant step in my writing journey. It gave me a push into the “bootcamp” of college writing, while still retaining certain aspects of writing that I find truly enjoyable. Looking back to my experiences in English 101, I believe that there exists a slight gap between high school and college level writing. In high school, my teachers never completely enforced formatting of our papers too much.

As far as any other information that I feel that shows my improvement as a writer I would like to include any and all of the information that from the reading assignments as well as any in class information that has helped with my writing skills over the semester. The reading assignments have been instrumental, because they help to give me a framework for what I am supposed to be writing.

I may not have improved, but my abilities in those areas were at a satisfactory level. During my first year of seminar at Saint Mary’s College I made improvements and in some areas I made no advancement. When it came to distinguishing multiple senses of a text I improved greatly. I started seminar at an average level of reading and when I read I did not look deeper into the text or think critically of its application on a larger scale than just within the story. I did not read very carefully at the beginning of a story and missed the subtle ideas that could be discussed.

High School vs. College During high school, I did not have to study as hard as I do now that I am in college. Usually, I would be able to study the day before the test and score a hundred percent. Although, occasionally, I would be able to skip a few classes and get the notes from a classmate or of course, resort to guessing. However, now that I am in college, the lectures require much more attentiveness and are more complex: composing more information, meaning that one has to proportion time more responsibly and take an advantage of good study habits. My learning skills have made a complete transformation since I have been in college.

This semester I was able to flourish as a writer due to essays given in class. I am now better able to analyze prompts and to communicate my ideas better on paper. Although my writing has drastically improved, it has not always been that way. As evident through past essays, my writing was poorly structured and contained spelling errors. Also through practice this semester I was better able to write a concrete thesis statement, something I was puzzled with in my previous English courses.

Over the course of this semester I learned a lot about myself as a writer. This English 101 class has really allowed me to expand my essay structure and ways of thinking. This was my first college writing course and it has given me much more freedom when writing because in high school I felt limited and like what we were writing was not very important. In high school I would write essays to just to fulfill the required word or page count and to a degree I still feel like this but maybe that is why I am an engineering major but in this course I actually was able to express my ideas and for the first time really test the limits of my writing capabilities. I really enjoyed being able to incorporate my voice more in my essays and I believe that I developed my own personal style a bit from this.

Through the last 4 papers I feel like I’ve improved on each one as the percentage of the grade was increased. On each paper I feel my development as a writer has increased not dramatically like I would have hoped but I’m starting to see what professors are looking for. Some of the changes I had made were using the Writing Centre more often: to have another eye pick up on things that I would miss while writing my essays. At the beginning of the semester my paragraphs would be off track and short not giving the description and evidence needed to prove the point that was asked. I also feel like I’ve been able to change my whole perception about writing, I’m starting to write in a more serious tone as well as giving the strong backbone to what I’m being asked to write about.

Once I learned a variety of new genres, techniques and ways to improve my writing process, that fear faded. Currently, I don’t feel terrified with the idea of English 102 and on; this class has not only given me tools to succeed, but a positive set of goals that will prevent my habit of procrastination that I loathe. What I have learned has changed me as a person and a writer; my new mindset and approach will hopefully keep my writing process growing and my drive to improve in high gear.