My College English Class and What I learned

This year in our English 1010 class, we covered many different genres and types of writing. We covered how to write personal narratives, how to respond to other students and other forms of writing, and how to professionally write essays. Briefly, we touched down on how to write argumentatively and were also required to create an infographic, wish was probably my favorite assignment. Although I never thought of myself as a strong writer, I believe that this class has greatly improved not only my writing skills, but my thinking skills as well. This was my first English class to be taken through dual enrollment and I believe that it went quite successfully while challenging me as a writer.

As the semester comes to a close, it is always interesting to look back and reflect on the events and opportunities my English class has given me throughout my first semester as a whole. At the beginning of this semester it was evident that I was feeling uncomfortable due to the adjustment that I was going through as a student moving to college. It was very difficult expressing myself through my writing since I was nervous about good impressions and my good grade. While this class was one of the most difficult courses that I have taken this far, it has become quite evident to me that I have grown a substantial amount as a writer and as a person; Especially, when it came to explaining my ideas, writing academic essays, and making arguments.

As I look back on my English 101 experience, I have come to the conclusion that I have learned many new things that have improved my abilities as a writer. I have learned some new techniques that have improved my ways of approaching an essay. I learned all about the rhetorical appeals and how to apply them in my writing and how to look for them in a essay written by a author. I have also learned how to argue both sides of a argument, and how to look for reliable sources and to properly quote and site the author of the essay. I feel as if I have become a better writer and my improved writing skills are shown within each essay.

The most important improvement for me in this course was on my grammar. I was not aware of the comma rules before. It was shocking to see where commas are to be put and the places that I usually miss. The Hacker lessons we did in and out of class on commas have improved my grammar significantly. Looking back through all of my graded essays it is unbelievable how many commas I have actually missed. Also, writing the essays in MLA format and including work cited entries and quotations, has helped me become more comfortable with it. When I write essays now, I do not hesitate or get anxious if I have to add a work cited entry. However, even though I have know a little bit more of when to use commas and have a little bit more knowledge about grammar there is still a lot of room for improvement.

This course was comprised of many learning activities; each was designed to help me achieve the course learning outcomes. I have taken two college English classes in the past; however, it has been several years since my last college class. I have some experience in writing and this class definitely helped me get back into writing. I often have trouble brainstorming and capturing the subject I need to write about. This class definitely helped me overcome the challenges I faced in writing and being able to effectively express my ideas in a clear and concise manner. Not to mention, it definitely helped build my writing foundation through a step by step approach to each assignment. Therefore, this class bolstered my writing and communication skills.

     As writers, many students write to the expectations of their professors and not to their fullest potential. Throughout English 101 I had been writing only to please my professor or to fill the basic requirement to pass English. I always felt that my writing ability was never enough for my professors throughout the previous years. They always wanted clear and concise essays, which for some reason was unreachable by me. However, starting college and taking English 101 helped me with my weaknesses and changed my technique of writing essays. My experience in English 101 taught me to write to my fullest potential and to write what I felt; rather then writing what was required.

Before this class I had a general idea of what it was but rarely placed much emphasis on it. Now I could not see myself ever constructing another paper without it. This sequence of brainstorming/research, drafting, and revision allows writers to take their raw ideas, build upon them, and develop them into scholarly writings. Ever since my enrollment in this course I have taken brainstorming and research much more seriously because I realized it is vital to the success of your paper. It is the origin of your whole paper this means it is imperative that you stay focussed and are thorough in your initial research. Before this course I would just google a very specific topic and get frustrated if it did not yield the results I had hoped for. This course taught me to start off broad and trim down my results while using search engines in order to obtain the most relevant information. The first time I reaped the benefits of this was working on my synthesis paper. I actually included this quote in my final synthesis paper draft "My purpose in life is to create change and give people an opportunity that they lack and to be able to bring that platform". I pulled this quote from research I did for the February 19th Weekly Write. I worked hard in my initial research to gather ideas and it paid off as it led me to this very powerful quote. Two more areas in the writing process I have started to place a heavy emphasis on because of this course are the drafting and revision. Oppose to cramming in a research paper on the last night like I did for my senior exit research paper and not putting forth my best work. I now construct a working draft early on in the process and continue to revise it as I develop my paper into the final product. With this I have been able to develop a much better understanding of my topics and have been able to eliminate many grammatical mistakes that I typically would have

Moreover, I consider homework assignments and activities in this course to be helpful. They have enhanced my writing skills, as I know how to write a story, a scenario, and how to support my argument. Frankly speaking, English writing must be my weakest point. However, due to our professor, all instructions were given in a precise manner and I could understand all tasks.

During this semester, the realization of my past was that I have often skimmed through parts of the writing process to get the job done. Not being an avid reader often hindered my writing abilities. This class most definitely made me realize that the entire writing process is important and having peer reviews also helped significantly and certainly made a difference in the result of my work. Taking the time to read, brainstorm my thoughts, write an outline, rough draft after rough draft, reading constructive criticism of others helped in the revisions of my papers’ reaching the best possible outcome. When selecting English 102, I knew I would be challenged, but to what extent I was unsure. If like past English courses that were taken learning to write essays would be the goal. Once realizing that my work would be shared with others, providing informed information

I used to consider writing as tumble words from your mind, write, read it through, fix minor mistakes, and done. However, you rarely get successful. The truth is many students, including myself, struggle with starting to write a word, or getting stuck in the middle without knowing the main point of the writing. After completing English 101, I can explain the writing process, evaluate the strengths of my essay, and identify my weaknesses.

I have never been the most talented writer nor the most creative. Although after taking this course I feel I am overall a better academic writer. The annotated bibliography really helped me to improve my academic phrasing and word choice. Oddly, the lectures I learned the most from is when you would take our titles or thesis statements and improve them to make them have a more efficient and academic tone. Although I never shouted out my examples in class I was able to understand your points, and take your academic tips to generate my own thesis statements and titles. I was also able to improve on my MLA format. As brutal as it seemed to deduct two points from each MLA mistake in the paper, it really helped me to focus on the little details and to use the Bedford Handbook when I was stuck on how to correctly cite sources. I know, almost for a fact, that I have improved and learned more in this English 1020 course than I did in any of my high school English

Writing is an art that you either love or hate in a sense. My time as a student in the past use to be the type that despised writing after the knowledge I gained from this course that has really changed. The problem came was not knowing how to revise my writings. Revising is a tool that is just as important in developing a paper than writing it. I was the type of author to think everything I wrote was perfect and wouldn’t take revising as a serious step. With this drawback fixed I’ve taken huge notice in how my papers sound and grade on an academic level. This course had many challenging aspects within the material that me as a person had to overcome. One of the most challenging aspects for me was learning to be more sociable to a private group

In high school, we were taught to meet the expectations that standardized tests required us to meet. When taking a standardized test, I had to focus on illustrating that I understood what I have read and usually wrote my paper in a book report style. In college, professors do not only want to make sure you have done the required reading, but also see that you are able to make a critical judgement of what you have read as well. Another difference between the writing that I have done in high school and the academic writing that I have done in college is the research methods that I use. Students in college must go into depth when researching. Resources when researching could be the library, online resources, and scholarly articles. In high school,

The things learned during the class, English 203, has not only helped the ability to write better, but also the ability to expand the research on each paper I have written. From the very beginning of this semester, I was taught to write an abstract, which I have never done before, but the basis of an abstract is to look at the big picture and take all the important points of a paper. Also, the papers that was written throughout the semester was not all based around one topic. The topics varied from sciences to engineering feats, while also coming up with our own business proposal where we learned how to format and make it a clean presentation of the idea, and finally we had to research Spartacus, and how it relates to history whether it is historically accurate or not. Taking English 203 has furthered my ability to write papers learning different techniques and ideas making myself a better writer.

I can remember seeing that I had to take an English class my first semester of college. I was already overwhelmed with starting college, and having to write college essays made me get even more nervous. I sat down with my mom and decided to look at the English classes available, and I finally decided that I had to take an evening class to make it work in my schedule. The first day of English came and now looking back it was not as bad as I thought. It made me a better writer and be where I am today. It may have taken me some time to get where I am today, but at least I am on the right track. English Composition helped me realize that I am my own author and have strengths that I did not realize I had.