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
Click here to unlock this and over one million essays
Show MoreEntering this course I was worried because I have struggled with writing in the past, and writing has never been my strongest area. I feared writing classes in middle and high school, and had the same expectations for this course. I had wondered if I was ready for college English, and was worried that my skills and abilities would not be one the level they needed to be for college courses. My attitude and understanding of my writing process have both changed since the beginning of this semester. One thing that really helped my attitude and confidence was the fact that I was able to complete the assignments and get a decent grade. I was worried that I might not be able to do college level writing, and when I started completing the assignments and learning new ways to write my confidence and attitude changed. Another thing that really helped me throughout this course was that there was plenty of reading and information available to guide me through my assignments. I realized that there was more freedom when it comes to writing than I had experienced in high school. Being able to write more freely, and the freedom to choose what subjects I would write over made the assignments more enjoyable and easier to
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.
At the beginning of the semester, I had a different idea of what is considered as good writing. In my first rough draft for my first essay, “Post-secondary education and cultural backgrounds”, I demonstrated mostly of my preconceived idea of what good writing is suppose to be. I tried to sound intelligent by asking rhetorical questions and using big words improperly. I noticed that there was no harmony and organization on my essay as a whole. I had no idea what MLA was. With the help of the Writing Center and my determination on continually revising my essay, my scattered ideas developed into cohesive statements. I learned the use of topic sentences, thesis, reference page, page number, and other given structures on writing a paper. As I tried to develop my skills to becoming a good writer, my writing and knowledge has slowly grew into the accepted academic text.
As a first year college student this course has taught me many core aspects to writing and critical thinking. Writing has not been one my strongest points in education, but I feel this course has helped me make strides in writing in many ways. This course has enlightened me on various aspects of writing and has taught me many different ways of writing quality essays. A few things that this course has taught me is how construct an acceptable thesis statement, how to prove my points in body paragraphs, and how to properly cite sources. Although I have learned an immense deal of writing skills within this course there some things I feel I can improve upon, such as, introductions and properly heading papers.
In the past three months I feel like I have accomplished a great deal. As the semester comes to an end I find myself reflecting not only how I have survived the first semester but also what I have learned. The most important thing I have learned so far is how to become a better writer. I did not think it could really happen to me. I did not think I could handle all the work. I did not think I could actually become a better writer. Some how after all the hours of writing, and putting effort into the papers that I wrote this semester, I became a better writer. I did this because I concentrated on two very important areas, with the attitude of, if I could just become better in those then I would become a better writer. With help from an awesome teacher and a reliable tutor I have become a better writer by improving my skills in the areas of procrastination and content.
Entering into this class, I was not quite confident of my capability to write well. From writing small essays, to research and reflection papers in high school, I was frightened by the fact of coming into a college writing class, with little experience, would not prepare me for this course. After taking this college writing course, writing 102 literature course that is, broadened my ability as a writer. It was something that I believe that I could have not grasped on my own, but I did.
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.
Throughout this semester I have learned many ways of writing through two main essays literacy narrative and comparison and contrast. These two essays have taught me how to correctly fix my comma splices, thesis statements, and capitalization. I have engaged in numerous learning material during this summer class. Many times when I thought it would be hard to work on those three developments I never gave up. I gain more positive feedback from my teacher because he pointed out most of my mistakes I made on both literacy narrative and comparison and contrast essays to help me understand what is it that I need to work on. My development as a writer became stronger.
This Expanded English Composition course has been a thrilling rollercoaster ride where I am filled with anticipation of when it will start, and excited when I conquered and survived it when the ride is over. This class has been exactly that. I felt as if this class would begin intense and calm down in the end or at least I would have a better understanding of English that I either forgot or did not understand. Through this course I know I have made continuous improvements in my writing English essays overall, and my grammar has improved drastically though I know that it still need more development. Last semester and especially this semester I have come to realize that I am not as horrible of a writer as I thought. Dr. Spear says that “[I] have a Cheerleader” style of writing which I have to agree with her about. This class opened my eyes to see how writing has so much to offer and everyone has their style of writing that can be incorporated to meet more than what is required. I feel I have achieved this so far so far and only took to improve more overtime.
Unit 1 taught me to focus on each step in the writing process. Approaching the task
Looking back over the course of the semester, I feel that I learned many new and interesting uses for technology within the classroom – both for classrooms that have a lot of technology and for classrooms that are limited with technology. For the majority of the class, we utilized William Kists’ book The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age (2010), which provided multiple modes of instruction that both utilized and/or created technology. One of the first things that I remember, and consequently that stuck with me through the course’s entirety, is that individuals must treat everything as a text. Even a garden is a text. The statement made me change the way that I traditionally viewed Language Arts both as a student and as a teacher, as I very narrowly saw literature and works of the like as texts only; however, by considering nearly anything as a text, one can analyze, study, and even expand his/her knowledge. Kist (2010) states that society is “experiencing a vast transformation of the way we “read” and “write,” and a broadening of the way we conceptualize “literacy” (p. 2). In order to begin to experience and learn with the modern classroom and technologically advanced students, individuals must begin to see new things as literature and analyze those things in a similar manner.
Taking a writing course is the fundamental structure to gain reading and writing techniques to become a successful learner in everyday life professionally and educationally. The skills that I will learn in this course will directly transfer to my other college courses. Taking English 1010 will help me think more critically and rhetorically. Writing is not only an important academic skill, but it’s also an important skill in any career field. Almost all jobs require you to have some form of writing on the job to be considered qualified. For example, nurses write medical reports on patients. Learning how to become a better reader and writer will help me become more successful in college.
I think college writing one was very beneficial for me in writing papers. I have had a hard time with writing papers in the past years. I have always had a hard time with making long sentences, and using better word choices. Also I struggled with making sentences flow smooth, and most of my sentences didn't make sense. However, with editing my papers out loud helped me create a smooth sentence. These are a few things I knew I had a time with going into college writing one. I was hoping I could practice and learn more on how to write an effective paper as best as I could. I will just be reflecting on the four papers I wrote in my college writing class this year.
During this College Composition course, I came across numerous obstacles and educational involvements. Every factor of this course contributed to my overall learning experience. For starters, we often read out of our textbooks, “The Little Seagull Handbook” and “They Say I Say”. These books helped showcase proper writing techniques. In addition, we would have class discussions that everyone would participate in. This opened my eyes to different viewpoints that could influence my writing. I recall one class we had a debate over a topic and everyone had to choose a side to argue. Then when we wrote argument essays, even though they were on a different topic, it helped me view my topic in different ways. Lastly, the most helpful to my writing was peer review. We were told to read our paper out loud to our partner. Although personally I am quiet and dislike reading out loud, I found this very helpful. Instantly, my partner and I could find grammar mistakes that one may not pick up on while reading silently. Then we could also talk about other possible revisions for my paper. For every paper, we would have conferences with the professor. This was effective as well to have a professional giving corrections and ideas. When we would get back our graded rubrics on the assignments we completed, the instructor would leave comments to
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