Reflective Self Analysis I’ve been a foreign student studying in the United States for four years. Education is extremely important to me. However, immediately after high school I didn’t have a desire to attend college. I perceived college as being difficult and I dreaded writing assignments for English classes. I later realized that I shouldn’t give up on educational goals simply because English isn’t my first language. I decided to give college a try and enrolled at The University of Texas at San Antonio, and am now enrolled in an English writing class. I’ve already become a stronger, more confident student and am happy with my decision to take on college. This self-analysis essay will show how I have progressed in my literary, analytical, …show more content…
My weakness when it comes to composition writing has been sentence structure. I often make grammatical errors throughout my assignments which I don’t always realize until after it has been submitted. My challenges in grammar are mostly punctuation, sentences structure, and overall attention to detail. When reviewing my final draft of my first assignment essay “Texas Campus Carry”, I noticed multiple mistakes. For example, the first paragraph began with, “However; many anti-gun activists believe that more guns are not the answer to a gun problem and a Campus Carry law may increase accidental discharges, violence, as well as youth suicides.” (Yamini, “Texas Campus Carry” Final Draft 1). Instead of using a semicolon, I chose to use a comma. In that essay, I was unsure of when a semicolon should be used. I believe these challenges will improve over time as my education progresses. I will continue my proofread strategy and pay more attention to details in future revised essays to address this …show more content…
I’m strong at organization and structuring multiple ideas in a method that reads well. Organization is an important element of an essay. I organize my essays with the reader in mind and stick to a structure of introduction, body, and conclusion. I feel this structure is easy to follow and it can hold a reader’s attention. Another strength I’ve developed during this semester is strong transition. I used strong transition words such as “despite” and “although” in the final draft of the essay “The Denture Dissertation”, which described the dentures process (Yamini, “The Denture Dissertation” Final Draft 1). I’ve used transition words such as in addition, as well as, likewise, similarly, therefore, further, immediately, throughout each essay. While my writing this year has both strengths and weaknesses, I believe I’ve had tremendous growth since the first day of
However, though John Warner’s argument is strong, Kerri smith’s argument is stronger. In Kerri Smith’s article “In Defense of the Five-Paragraph Essay,” She claims that the five-paragraph essay should stay taught in schools as a guideline for a well-structured essay. She explains the five-paragraph essay as an “introduce-develop-conclude structure” that even great expository writing follows this structure (Smith 16). She purposefully communicates to her audience this idea to show that this structure gives students the knowledge and capability to write a professional essay. The five-paragraph essay includes the three key points to have a well-structured and organized essay. By mentioning that other great writers use this form of structure, she creates a stronger argument as to why the five-paragraph essay is important to education. She continues her article by explaining her early stages of writing and how she was taught; over time, her teachers would show her new ways to improve her writing which, in the end, she was told to think “of those five paragraphs simply as a mode of organization” (Smith
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.
‘I am going to fail’ was the very first thought that crept into my mind on that very first day of class. Before I stepped into the classroom on the first day, I felt pretty good about my writing. I had done previously well in English, and didn’t think this class would be much of a challenge. This all changed on the first day of school, when my professor talked about the level of reading and writing expected for this class. I remember thinking ‘I don’t read, why couldn’t I have been born someone who likes to read?!’ Since this moment on the very first day of class, I have grown immensely through hard work. In this essay, I will explain what I have learned over the course of this class about myself, and about writing.
When I was first accepted into the AP Language & Composition course, I felt overwhelmed. I had always received above average grades in all subject areas, but because this was an AP course I was unsure if my English skills were up to par. During the summer, my anxiety about the course increased. I began to feel that my writing skills were inferior to the skills of my peers’. Before this course, I did not have a developed writing voice or style. I had little knowledge of what phrases or words to avoid using in writing. I started to wonder if I truly belonged in an AP course. After having completed this course, I have a better grasp of the English language and have acquired skills that have improved my writing.
My development as a writer has flourished throughout this semester. The first week of this fall semester started out with writing responses from our readings in the textbook. Looking back through and analyzing my reading responses at the semester to now; I noticed a substantial improvement in not only my grammar skills, but also my summarizing, and in-depth studying of writing adeptness. Another way I have progressed this semester is the vocabulary of my writing has significantly improved and become more scholarly. Another advancement I noticed was that the content of my work has matured, along with my organizational adeptness.
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.
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.
In my second essay, the analysis essay, the only transitional word I used was furthermore. The lack of transitions caused the flow of the paper to be choppy and somewhat unorganized. My latest essay encompassed many transitional words such as: in other words, instead, however, generally, furthermore, although, and nevertheless. I learned to provide the reader with a better understanding of the text and more enjoyment while reading through the use of better transitions. At the beginning of Composition 1, my points were not always completely developed. The advice my professor gave was to develop “a paragraph on each that goes ‘a mile deep and an inch wide’ rather than ‘an inch deep and a mile wide.” I took that advice to heart. I strive to practice the skills we learned, like the SEE strategy, to properly develop my points and increase the comprehension of the reader. Over the course of the semester, I have grown much as a writer developing better organizational skills and creating a more easily comprehensible fluidity in my
This class has been significantly more difficult than any other English class I have taken all throughout high school. This semester, I have been introduced to different styles of writing that I have never been exposed to before. This class has been stressful, but also fun. With using all of the resources I have been given throughout the semester, I have been able to do my best to further my writing abilities and hopefully only continue to grow them as I finish my later years in college. Throughout this essay, I will discuss my failures, my successes, my overall performance in the class, and my skill development skills.
The transition between high school writing and college writing marked a difficult time for me. In high school, I never had the motivation required to develop my writing skills and writing essays was not my forte. I would express my jumbled thoughts on a paper and turn them in for a decent grade. Upon coming into English 1101 with this lax mindset, I immediately encountered many weaknesses in my writing, struggling with constructing an essay with a proper direction, style and grammar. As I began reviewing my problems, I started understanding these issues and eventually learned to improve upon them. From my portfolio, I hope to demonstrate my improvement upon these weaknesses in English 1101.
As a writer, my greatest strength is to layout the essay as introduction, body and conclusion and especially thesis. In EAP, I was taught carefully in this regard, the construction of introduction, a thesis is the main factor because it is the main point of the essay. However, arranging ideas and put them into sentences are not my strong. For example, in the essay, there were a lot of ideas and arguments that I collected and I put them randomly in paragraph...
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.
As my English 101 class comes to an end, I have realized how much I have transformed as a writer. In this essay, I am going to explain what I realized my strengths and weaknesses are as a writer and how they have manifested themselves throughout the quarter. I was skeptical at first coming into this class knowing that English takes formidable work and dedication, but I am very proud of the progress I have made. We completed a great deal of work throughout the quarter; from grammar exercises, summary reviews, and two challenging essays. Throughout the quarter I found myself improving in each category. As a writer, my skills and confidence have developed into more clarity and thought, something I have always wanted to be, as a result of a well constructed class that led to a superb educational experience.
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...
In the past, I used to start writing an essay without writing an outline. I even did not brainstorm before I began to write. As a result, my essays were undoubtedly messy and disorganized. For instance, after I finished writing my Paper 2, I asked my professor for suggestions. He advised me to rearrange the order of paragraphs since my essay was disorganized and disordered. At that moment, I finally realized that if I did not plan out what I was going to write, my essay would be less likely to be logical because outline is like a base and foundation of an article. Hence, I started writing an outline from then on. For example, I nowadays would like to write my thesis statement down first. After that, I will briefly write down what I will talk about in body paragraphs. After using pre-writing skills and techniques, I notice that my essays are much more organized; and thus, my essays are no...