Reflective Writing Process

In the 2011 article “Helping Students Meet the Challenges of Academic Writing”, educators Linda Fernsten and Mary Reda offer innovative self-reflective writing exercises that post-secondary instructors can employ to help students improve writer self-image and academic writing. The authors’ rationale for reflective and practical writing strategies were developed from direct classroom experience, and are based on four (4) assumptions. Their claim that self-reflective writing can aid student writers in overcoming conflict (due to dominant culture, upbringing, former writing experiences, gender, and other marginalizing factors) to improve writer self-identity is plausible. However, their argument that cross-curriculum academic writing can be improved through self-directed, self-reflective writing requires further investigation.

This semester has impacted me and my writing abilities greatly. I feel I have improved in all aspects of writing. Throughout High school writing was never my preferred subject, but after taking this class I have developed an interest in writing and no longer look at it as a chore, but more as a method to express myself.

Reflecting at my own writing process and using my experiences as a way to shape my future practice as an English teacher, has brought light to the concepts of style, providing opportunities for multiple forms of writing, creating low-stakes writing opportunities, addressing authentic audiences, and establishing non-judgmental/safe space classrooms. Based on the theory that Milner et al. outline in the "Process Model," (2012, p.339) I would almost explicitly follow this pedagogy as a way to help students explore writing. For example, I would focus on the steps relating to revision (step 2), teaching multiple forms of writing (step 3), creating opportunities for teacher conferences (Step 4), and providing students with authentic, and divers audiences

Two resources that I would use to improve my writing are the Writing Lab (within the College) and the Amherst Online Resources for Writers. These two resources can assist me in proofreading my work, to identify where my strengths and weakness are and assist me with improving my writing skills. The Amherst Online outline and explained with the assistance of a directory of web pages, the specifics of College Essays. I also needed to proofread and ensure that I do not have any grammatical errors.

I have always prided myself on my thoughts and ideas; it is my ability to convey those thoughts through writing, with which I struggle. In highschool I managed to get by fairly well in my English class. We were primarily graded on reading comprehension, and so my poor writing skills had little opportunity to negatively impact my grade. I did not find this to be so in Writing 100, however. It quickly came to my attention that I would need to improve my writing if I wished to do well. I realized that in order to improve my writing, I would need to fix one of my worst qualities as a writer: my tendency to begin writing without properly understanding the prompt. This past semester in Writing 100 I have made an effort to fix this, and it has led me to become more intentional of the purpose of my essays, which, in my opinion, has helped highlight an intellectual depth that my work was incapable of displaying before.

Overall, I see myself doing well in this program, however there are some areas that I need to improve upon. I anticipate some challenges in organizing, structuring long documents and critical thinking. The idea of having time to sit for a period of time to focus on my writing is difficult. Most of the time I have a wealth of ideas but I need to organize them in a cohesive outline. If I rush through an assignment, I make too many mistakes and that is frustrating. My approach to tackling frustration is to start early. Finishing early allows me the time to go back and check my work. This also works to my benefit because I will stay up late and put in many hours to make sure my work is correct. My philosophy, when it comes to education,

Coming into this class, I wasn't sure what to expect. Of course,I expected to be writing a lot but was unsure of the type of writing and the style. I was looking forward to writing challenging pieces that stretching me creatively as a writer. I wanted to explore how to express myself in my writing because it had been a long time since I'd written a creative essay. One of my main hopes for this class was challenging myself to become a better editor of my own papers. I often find it a tedious and laborious process to find and edit the grammatical errors in my papers. However, this is an important skill that I need to develop for my future as a successful writer.

     One of the techniques I am going to use through out college is talking to

For this process reflection I am going to start with is what influences my writing and my process for writing. After that I will go a bit into what I’ve learned so far in the course and how that has add some influence on my writing as well. That being said isn’t all of our writing a reflection of ourselves? I’ll come back to that idea at the end if there’s room with this double spacing nonsense.

Never taking an English course in college makes me hesitant about this reflective writing assignment and the course since the structure and work is very distinct from my science courses. I took AP English Language and Composition in high school and was able to place out of English 101. I do not consider my self to be an excellent writer, and not having taken an English course in 3 years makes me excited. The English courses that I took in high school were not like this one. You would read a book, write an essay, and move on to the next assignment. Every course that I taken in my college career has been science based, so I am very intrigued to be taking this course because it is different but yet relevant to my field.

Early in the year I was diagnosed with depression that rendered me unable to complete my dissertation to any fit standard. Primarily, my ability to focus was very negatively affected, crippling my ability to do effective research and to write a serious academic document.

I have been helping David’s mother for about 2 months now. First she came to the windows inquiring a motor vehicle case on which she was the victim. She had a case number, but I could not find the case in the computer. She asked me to help her at the Police Department and I went with her, she provided the case number to them , but PD’s didn’t have any reports under that case number.

One of the biggest problems I had when trying to write this, was to try and keep it completely original, instead of trying to make it just another ‘zombie apocalypse’ style story. By the end, it seemed pretty much the exact same as much of the other kinds of stories. Another big problem had been from when I would try to write down ideas before I forgot them and had wound up causing quite a few spelling problems, which I wasn’t able to fix.

The writing process of pre-writing, drafting, revising and publishing has helped me to become proficient in my writing. After applying the writing process method, I can break down my writing into manageable chunks and focus on delivering quality material. I believe that my writing dramatically depends on my attitude, motivation and engagement as I have gathered that the writing process takes these components into account by allowing me to plan my writing and create a publishable, final draft of my work of which I can be satisfied. It addresses my need for a real audience and to take the time to draft and redraft my work.

Essential skills and knowledge toward the job provided and relevant work habits for the job are important values within the workplace because they are key factors to a successful employee. Some of these skills that are needed and that I have developed at Langetree are use and experience with computers and problem solving. On the other hand, some work habits that are important are reliability and customer service.