College freshman face many challenges and difficulties transitioning from high school to college. For instance, writing composition is one of the challenges I face in college. The final assignment; a portfolio, provides me an opportunity to discover my true strengths and weaknesses of writing college tier essays. Reflecting over my growth in the course objectives, I have been able to acquire the true strengths and weaknesses of my writing. Freshman writing composition assists in revealing my two strengths in critical thinking and personal responsibility in writing essays, but also exposes the two major weaknesses of my communication skills such as grammar and mechanics within my essays. Freshman composition has helped me develop my critical …show more content…
To explain, my weakness in style errors occur in all my essays: “Cause and Effect of Technology and Globalization,” “Financial Advisors in Today’s Work Place,” and “Too Much Spending by the government?” The instructors analysis of all three essays address the following style errors that consist of sentence fragments, pronoun reference, parallel structure, coordinative, and unnecessary words (“Cause and Effect … ” 1-5; “Financial Advisors … ” 1-5; “Too Much Spending … ” 1-5). Another illustration of my writing from the essay “Cause and Effect of Technology and Globalization” is a sentence fragment, “That is to say employers are looking for graduates …” Correcting the sentence fragment and revising the sentence appear here by changing the sentence fragment from “that” to “In other words” (“Cause and Effect…” 3). To demonstrate another weakness in my writing is the use of unnecessary words. An example of this is “… employers require of their new employees to acquire for a position …,” and the unnecessary word is “to acquire,” and either the phrase is unnecessary to the sentence or it could be expressed more concisely (“Financial Advisors …” 1). These examples show how I have weakness in my style of writing. Undoubtedly, being able to use style is key because it exemplifies the tone, and professionalism in my writing can improve an opinion about my essay. For that reason, I desire to obtain the appropriate writing style as one of my
Transitioning from high school to college can be overwhelming. Before English 1301, I thought that I did not have to worry about being prepared for college. I quickly realized that my little background in writing essays was not going to be enough for college. Writing is not just something that I will use in English classes. In college, I will have to use effective writing skills in all my classes to complete research papers, essay tests and communicate to professors. Throughout my education, writing strategies persisted to be something that did not come easy to me. I dreaded writing because I could never find ways to get my thoughts down on paper. Ironically, a class that petrified me due to the amount of writing that was required ended up helping me in so many ways. English 1301 and my professor prepared me so much for college and real life.
Learning to read and write are both considered to be fundamental human skills, that we begin to learn from the day we start school. As time advances, as do our minds, and we are expected to evolve in our reading and writing skills. Finishing high school is a large milestone for the lives of young adults; however, there is so much to learn in order to reach the next big milestone. To be a writer in college can challenge our preconceived thoughts on how we write. Although some skills remain unchanged, high school graduates are faced with overcoming new ways of doing a skill that seems so simple that it is practically innate. The definition of writing skills for college students is much different than high school. However, considering we have come so far it is time to go over the information we already know and challenge ourselves with ideas that we are yet to learn more about.
Dual Enrollment English was the first real college-level class I ever had. I actually have taken other college-level classes before it, but Dual Enrollment English was the only course that gave me an accurate representation of how college will really be like and what it will expect of me. My journey through Dual Enrollment English began with a sense of fear and self-defeat and ended with a sense of satisfaction and confidence with many highs and lows along the way. This portfolio catalogs the evolution of my writing during my two semesters in Dual Enrollment English including seven different types of papers as well as each of their respective drafts and tutor feedback.
As the semester finally approaches the finish line, I revisit my past work to compare and contrast how this class has developed me into a successful writer at the college level. Throughout the year my writing style has developed and become broader as I have learned how to incorporate more of my personal views as well as reliable, unbiased information. This portfolio is a representation of how many things I have learned along the way while being an English 102 student.
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.
Throughout the semester i only learned few new things but i did improve and solidify my skill of writing. Before my first year of college my skills have always undermined by other high school english teachers and with that came disappointing grades. I am writing this paper as a reflection of the semester and the progress i have made as a writer. I now understand many things that my high school teachers have done a poor job demonstrating and i am grateful that i decided to take my own route in my education instead of their syllabus. I entered the semester with anxiety that i would perform as i did before but i clearly outdid my own expectations by receiving top grades on my essays.
I started the semester not knowing how I would adjust going from a high school writing class to a college level writing class. I felt my writing was above average, but writing was never one of my strong suits. I had no way of knowing if my writing competency could hold up to college academic standards. I took expository writing with Professor James Brady. Over the course of the semester, multiple learning objectives were learned through my essays. These learning objectives were subject matter knowledge, writing process knowledge, rhetorical knowledge, genre knowledge, and meta-cognition.
When it came to the process of writing my first, second, and third essay’s, there was clear visual improvement that I have become a better writer in certain aspects. As for essay one, I tended to rely on my writing skills as a high school student rather than use the components of a successful college student essay. This was definite once I received the feedback given by ...
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. Therefore, because of the rigorous essay work each essay brought, I learned more about how to write different pieces and grow from my “failure”.
The art of writing is a complex and difficult process. Proper writing requires careful planning, revision, and proofreading. Throughout the past semester, the quality of my writing has evolved significantly. At first, I struggled with the separation of different types of paragraphs, and I found writing them laborious. Constant practice, however, has eliminated many of my original difficulties, and helped to inspire confidence in my skills. As a collegiate writer, my strength lies in my clear understanding of the fundamentals of writing, while my primary weakness is proofreading my own work.
As I chose to take this class and better my writing skills at a college level, I knew this class was going to be difficult. With a total of four essays to write I knew I had to be on my game from the beginning. Throughout durations of this class, I have learned how to become more responsible, plan ahead of time, and how to become a better writer. With each mistake made i have been able to learn and improve. An Ad Analysis, Comparative Analysis, Narrative, and an Argumentative Essay are the four papers we had to write for the course.
On a typical hot day, the twenty-eight of August was the first day of the fall 2016 semester. I was excited to attend my English Composition I and meet my instructor. I was able to write an essay without any struggle as I learned before in the English language Institute of Akron university. However, writing an academic essay needs a lot of practice, knowledge and that what I needed in order to improve my writing skills. As an ELI student I was able to write a formal essay with fundamental requirements but without sense of creativity. I started to learn new ways of writing essays, used my imagination and developed creative new methods to attract the reader 's attention. There are many aspects to write college level essays that I was not aware
In this portfolio reflection essay I will be addressing the five essays I have written for my English 101 class. Along with addressing the five essays I have wrote I also will be stating my strengths and weaknesses of those essays. The five essays this portfolio will include is a diagnostic essay, revised narrative essay, profile essay, evaluation essay, and arguing a position essay. Those five essays I have written over the course of this semester have been very helpful towards my writing skills. Punctuating, staying on topic, my introductions, and conclusions are areas I struggle with when writing papers, but by writing those five papers during this semester has helped me improve on those areas.
I have learned many things throughout the course of the term, including such things as: how to write an essay and how to improve on essays that I have already written, how to locate and composite better research through the use of numerous resources found at the campus library, the internet, and the “Common Sense” textbook, how to cite research, examples, and quotations properly within the contents of my research paper as well as document it accurately according to MLA standards. Through the exploration of the “Subjects and Strategies” textbook, I have learned nine different methods used when writing an effective essay and how the different writing styles affect the overall theme and tone of the essay when used properly. This past semester, I have encountered many difficulties when trying to write these essays, but through the use of the textbooks, the aide of the instructor, and once I was able to classify the different types of essays and styles, I found them possible to overcome.
During the course of this semester; the variety of writing styles and essays assigned to me in my communication skills class encouraged the development of my writing skills, as well as provided me with more self-assurance in my abilities. My writing, research, and presentation abilities enhanced through practice, determination, and the understanding I gained during this course. With every single writing assignment, I learned new innovative approaches and skills, which enhanced my abilities to improve my thoughts logically, enabling me to write more clearly, and to organize my papers more effectively. At the beginning of this semester; despite the fact that I already knew the terminology MAP: message, audience, purpose; I never really understood the significance of MAP. For this reason, my writing lacked clarity, organization, and my writings appeared less focused on the topics. As a result my research papers and essays did not flow as smoothly from one passage to the next. Furthermore, I was unaccustomed with the precise procedures used when writing an essay. For instance, my previous classes before college, although requiring a reference page, did not require me to include proper citations in my writings. After evaluating the quality of my writing toward the end of the semester, I recognized vast improvements in several areas of my writing. By concentrating on the beginning stages of my writings, I could distinguish ahead of time my audience and my message. As a result, my essays are clear, and I remain on topic. In addition to that using transition phrases efficiently also helps my writing to flow smoothly. The proper use of transitions makes my writings easy to follow from one topic to the next. I also learned that pre-writing...