The Reflective Essay
When I was a child, writing was one of my favorite hobbies, so I used to spend many hours to write in my daily journals. However, when I came to America, I felt more difficult to write and express my thoughts in English because I did not know much vocabularies and lacking grammatical knowledge. Then, I decided to go back to school to improve my writing skills because I recognize the significant of writing in my everyday lives. As a college student, my writing are about different types of class assignments such as reflections, journals, essays, and research papers. As a teacher aide in the preschool classroom, and most of my writings are reports, observation, notes, and curriculum planning. At the beginning of the Academic Writing Seminar (AWS 100) when I wrote my first essay assignment, and I found out that writing essays in English was not easy. At the end of the semester, I realize I have learned valuable lessons while working seriously to write assignments from the AWS 100, so this class will a step with deep preparation to help me successful in writing research papers skills at Pacific Oaks College. In this essay, I will also introduce the “best” of my writing, and share my experiences on the process of creating this portfolio.
While taking this course, the most valuable piece of information I learned is about development techniques. At the beginning of this class, I had problem with development techniques. I used to focus on answering the questions
A person communicate different variety of ways, both verbally and non-verbally. Primates and other animals have been communicating without the use of language since long before humans invented verbal communication. Some scientists believe that even today, most communication between humans is non-verbal. Both types of communication differ significantly between genders and across cultures.
During my high school years, I cultivated a wide variety of writing experiences: informal and formal papers, research papers, lab reports, and various creative writing pieces. However, I am most experienced with standard three to five page English essays. This type of writing is by far my strongest, and I feel most comfortable with this format. Given a well-defined topic or style of paper like a basic English essay, I tend to do quite well and I am able to convincingly relay my points; but I do have some difficulty with longer papers with little direction. In those cases, my writing can either be too long-winded or too repetitive. However, I do excel at analysis, particularly with novels. I find that I am generally able to convey my ideas
Writing is a practice that most of us were taught when we were young. We were taught the basics of grammar, how to form a sentence, conjunction words, how to write paragraphs and more. Although we have learned this skill while growing up and have used the skill every year after entering kindergarten, this does not mean our writing process will ensure the best work. The authors that I chose each encourage their audience to excel in the art of writing in their own way to help with the writing process.
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.
I totally agree with what the author is saying in the text. It takes time to get a good product out even though we think some people are deep and wonderful they still have the same struggles that we have when it comes to writing. I like this text because it is realistic it is giving an account of first drafts from common day people and shows how it is even for professional writers have problems with. This point is important because as people we sometimes feel we are not as good or capable of doing something not realizing that the people we look up to have the same problems we do. Another point that I agree with the author on is that you have to start somewhere. Many times as writers we don’t know where to start when it comes to writing. That being said we will just sit and think for ten twenty minutes when we could've just been information on the paper and then editing it later. In addition I liked that the author used examples from his professional experience when it came to writing food reviews. By him using details like how he went to the restaurant and sat down with friends and took notes of what was said. This was good to me because it helps me connect with him and the things that he does to write his reviews.
One of the techniques I am going to use through out college is talking to
Most of us were in a situation when we had to say: “I am not too good at it.”, or “I can try, but it is not my field”. For example, somebody will ask me to draw a picture of a cat. I will try. I have seen cats before, know how to operate a pencil, have a flat piece of paper. I am even passing by art gallery on the regular basis, on my way to work. But I still cannot be sure you will not mistake my picture of a cat for a picture of a tractor or an intergalactic battlefield scene. That is how I feel about assignment to write about my writing process. So far, mine I can divide in three steps.
When it comes to organization, I had some ability making sure that my writing flowed and seemed coherent, but I had trouble making sure that the organization was the best it could be and allowed readers to fully understand what I was writing about. Coming in to the class, I knew how to piece an essay together so that the writing seems like it makes sense and the reader can follow it without getting lost throughout.
For as long as I can remember I have always struggled with writing especially essays. I am not sure if it is my lack of imagination or my lack of knowledge with writing basics but writing has definitely been a struggle for me. When I entered this class I became very nervous right away to learn that I was going to have to write in this class. Could I be successful in this class? Would I have any idea what I was doing? Although, I was nervous and had many fears, as soon as we jumped into week two things seemed to flow and my fears seemed to subside. This class was setup in a way that helped the student be successful. The key to my success was to not fear the essay but to break it apart and do it in pieces (the way the course was set up). The research paper was very beneficial in teaching me the sections of a research essay that can be carried over into other writing areas.
My first semester as a college student has been a roller coaster. In English Composition Ⅰ, I wrote many papers; some stood out more than others. The papers I am most proud of are “One House, A Million Things”, “Not Another Family”, and “Starbucks or Starsucks?”. Throughout the course of the semester, I have learned new ways to express my thoughts on a new level. The basics of my writing process has stayed the same, but I have learned new techniques. I always have a topic in mind first, then I normally just start babbling on and on about the topic. This semester we learned to ‘rip the roo’; in other words erase the entire thing and restart. I do not have to completely rip the roo every single time, but ripping part of the roo has become a huge part of my process. I will erase a section here or there to make the flow work better. Once I have my rough draft where I want it, I go back and fine tune the paper to make sure all aspects are where they need to be.
Writing is a long journey. You start to learn the basics of writing but then start to proceed to learn new skills to become a better writer. But in the journey you will go through ups and downs but you can always reflect on them. The Struggles I´ve faced as a writer this year is my grammar and my organization. My grammar issues still came along, Ive always had this issue in the beginning. I would mistakenly use past tense words instead of present tense words. So what I had to do to not make this mistake again was to know when to use past tense words and present tense words, plus I would search up examples. As soon as I got into it,
I relate to this quote by Brandon A. Trean because to me photography and writing are sort of similar. There can be a 100,000 meanings and things going on in a photo as there can be on a page. Writing and pictures capture moments and feelings that can make the person reading or looking feel as if they were at that place and feeling those emotions, that's why I enjoy writing.
Numerous people find writing tedious and even tiresome. They get discouraged and want to quit too quickly. Though I have greatly enjoyed writing previously, I have now found that essays are more difficult and not enjoyable. From my past experiences, challenges in the writing process, and emotions surrounding writing, I now recognize how much I dislike writing.
Before I came to college, I felt my writing had to follow a certain pattern and be fixated around one way of thinking. What I was fortunate to learn was quite the opposite. Writing does not have to follow any certain pattern, but can rather be structured through many different possibilities. I was also told in high school that my papers either had to agree or disagree with the given topic, even if I believed otherwise. This formulated a very one-track way of thinking when it came to my papers. Now I know that I can let my mind explore new and exciting ideas. I can agree, disagree, compliment, criticize, and question the author however my heart desires, as long as I have the evidence to back myself up. Many authors in the book, Writing About Writing, explain their processes as well as the processes of others when it comes to writing. As a writer, I can draw on my own processes and relate them to the authors, as well as use their ideas and apply them to myself. Through reading, I have learned new methods of invention, planning and revising, and incubation when it comes to writing. All ways I can use to create more meaningful and creative work.
A writing experience that was significant to me was when I was taking AP Language my junior year. We just had finished watching “To Kill A Mockingbird” and our teacher instructed us to write an essay. The topic was the importance of fatherhood and we had to use examples from the movie and real life to support our claim of how fathers are essential to a child's life. The writing experience changed me because I never had a father in my life.