My Progress as a Reader and Writer Essay

99.9 Percent Critical reading is an important part of college success, being able to break down a piece of writing to the foundation makes it easier to understand the authors main point. Finding out and analyzing what the author used to support the points given in their writing such as, personal experience, examples, studies or statistics. These elements can help with not only understanding the piece, but help students with their own writing in college and in everyday life. Giving a piece of writing support or claims with reliable sources make it a stronger more rounded piece of writing.

I also look forward to improving my academic reading skills. I currently dislike reading academic readings as I find them incredibly boring and time consuming. I know they are for my own good, but if it is assigned for a class that isn’t directly related to my career aspirations, I often don’t read them, but rather use that time to read something that is essential for my career. As I move forward, I wish to be more like the character Seth in Haas and Flowers’ Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning. Seth is a rhetorical reader who searches for the deeper meanings within academic readings all while connecting prior reading experience to the text he is currently reading. In assignment 3 we were required to create a metaphor

In the past two months i fell like i have accomplished a great deal. As i focus on it more i realize i have become a better reader. I did this by concentrating on my readings and take my time to read them. With the help of my professor and classmates i began to analyze what i read.

Ever since I started attending Mrs.Kigar’s 1st hour Senior Comp. class, my writing skills have expanded into a new level. I learned a lot about writing for example; before this class I had never heard of parallelism and didn’t know the impact it had on writing. Another part of my stylistic learning was learning about transitions, semicolons, commas, and apostrophes. I also wrote almost every different style of paper too which really helps in improving the ability to write.

Once the basic skills of reading are learned, like vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency, there is rarely any more practice being done and most of the time is dedicated to the writing process. At the college level, professors have limited time to talk about everything, therefore reading instruction unintentionally yet easily gets ignored when professors want to move on and talk about other material. The article “Not Just for Writing Anymore: What WAC Can Teach Us About Reading to Learn” by Mary Lou Odom discusses the importance of reading to learn and how many students and faculty struggle with this concept. Odom emphasizes that students receive little to no additional instruction in reading once they have mastered the skills taught at

All throughout my years of schooling, I’ve had just about, one paper that was about one page long, due every year. My papers never had to be more than one page in length. Therefore, I did not have to do much writing or do many essays. Surely not enough to remember any of the assignments. Writing has never been something I enjoyed doing, so I never bothered to many any memories of my writing experiences. I did not think it was necessary to remember any of them since I only had to do them to get a grade. The only writing experience I remember was the first assignment I had in this English 100 class about a writing experience. All week long, I sat there thinking about what to write about, but nothing came to mind as a topic. Then, one thing came to mind, but it was so very vague, I could not write the length that was needed for the assignment. I could only think of a few sentences to write for it. After sitting for a few moments longer, I thought, how about I write about how difficult it was for me to write this essay before it was due.

For some people reading can be a difficult experience. For me it became difficult at the age of five years old. I really wasn’t an educational kid I was more of a kid that like to play with my toys and four brothers, whenever they came home from school. As I grew up reading became a little more difficult for me to master, at times in my middle school my teacher Mr.G would test us on how well and skilled we were at reading. Every day when it was time for him to test me I would get nervous and started to stubble on words and fail my test. By the time I was in high school I learned how to take my time and read, which has help me to progress my reading skills over the years.

Reflecting as a writer and thinker I have noticed tremendous improvements in my work. My whole thought process and way of viewing topics has changed, giving me a better understanding when I write. In the beginning of the term I ran into many problems in College Writing I for instance, I was not too familiar with writing in MLA format and struggled reaching the page count. I found myself to procrastinate when papers were assigned making my anxiety levels increase. Despite my struggles as a writer and thinker, I learned how to overcome these obstacles. I learned to be open minded and looking at topics from another perspective.

A semester has passed since I started college and my journey of becoming a better writer. It has been a very important semester for my future college career, and I would not be here without the things I have accomplished. The composition program has really helped me to prepare for what college writing is all about. Now standing here and looking back I could not imagine how it would be without that class. I believe my English, and my writing is better than it has ever been, and all thanks to the composition program.

At 11:15 on Monday, August 17, 2015, my first official college class, English 1101, began. In general, I had no idea what college classes would be like let alone how college English would be. Even though this class taught me a great deal in one semester, it took a large amount of time and effort to make the adjustment from high school. The simplistic writing style of high school was put to rest the moment the first college English class began. As a result, I learned quickly that college writing is complex and less systematic than high school writing. Five paragraph essays with three strict body paragraphs were no longer the norm for writing. Even though my professor helped guide my writing, I was no longer coddled through the whole writing

Teaching students to think while reading--critical reading--should be central to any discussion of thinking skills. This is in part because the reading of textbooks has such an important role in the content fields. Critical reading is defined as learning to assess, draw inferences and arrive at conclusions based on the evidence.

Despite me disliking reading and writing, these past 3 semesters of college I have done more reading than I did my entire high school career. At times when reading, I will find myself reading the same paragraph five times because I keep distracting myself while reading. This also led to me not understanding the text. I had to find ways to read more efficiently. I researched ways to improve reading skills. While researching, the technique that helped most was highlighting important points in my readings. I have not reread a single paragraph out of being distracted since. I also find it much easy to understand and follow text by reading summaries prior. I may not excel in reading and writing but I am much more proficient in it. Being literate in reading and writing has helped me become more literate in many other areas in

The most interesting aspect I discovered about my writing this semester is my ability to read, appreciate, and interpret a piece of literature and write analytically about it. In this course I’ve grown to change my reading process completely. I had a tendency to read

     Another weakness that I had coming into English 101 was my way of reading. I remember having to read an essay or book 3 or 4 times before I could ever sit down and write about it. I was looking and at the words all wrong. However, my professor introduced a technique of reading critically. “A critical analysis, on the other hand, takes a viewpoint and attempts to its validity;” (Trimble, 95) In Trimble’s quote he is trying say that a critical analysis helps a reader understand what the author is really trying to point out. This was the same approach that was taught to me by my professor. This type of analysis helped me understand better what the author was trying to convey and it also helped me explain it better in my essays.

My journey through reading and writing started once I started school. I don’t remember the early years but they laid down a foundation for me. It got me to where I am today. I love reading for pleasure but I want to be more open to different types of genres. I’m not the best writer but I try my best to write well. I have a strong approach to writing an essay but when it comes to actually writing, I don’t feel too confident. I hope that this year will help me become a better reader and writer.