There are certain moments in my writing process, even more than twenty years later, that I can still imagine hearing that sharply critical voice striking a deep and lasting blow as the journalism assignment replete with bloody red ink landed on my desk. “This is all wrong,” were the words my high school journalism teacher stabbed me with as she passed down the aisle pausing only long enough for me to catch a whiff of her nicotine breath. At the very same moment my stomach muscle knotted, my face burned as if with fever, and those four words echoed out of control over and over again in my ears. Notoriously late for class due to her love of smoking cigarettes in the teacher’s lounge (in those days smoking was allowed in school buildings), Ms. B’s entrance into the class on this particular day was no exception. With a flurry of authority, arrogance, and impatience, she appeared before me-the subservient and humble student. Her disdain for my writing was obvious in her written comments on the returned assignment. But it was the spoken word about my writing that intimidated and humiliated me, even to this very day when I allow myself to think back on the incident.
Hearing that my work was “all wrong” in the presence of other students was the worst embarrassment I could imagine as a shy and overly sensitive teenager. I wanted to crawl under my desk and hide. I managed to fight back tears until my retreat to the lavatory at the end of the period. Any confidence I had in my writing died that day. From that moment on my dreams of being a writer were severely compromised. Ms. B had taken advantage of her position of power over my writing. Whether this was intentional on her part or just a case of insensitivity or carelessness has no bear...
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...well, it is difficult for me to do so. Perhaps it is his never-failing encouragement and my appreciation of his teaching methods that won’t allow me to take the role of an English teacher when reading his work.
It has been my experience that young student writers can be very vulnerable to harsh criticism from a teacher or person in authority. And in my own case, that criticism didn’t disappear at the end of the semester but in fact, stayed with me for many years. I still have to push that ghost of criticism out of my head when I sometimes have difficulty with my writing. For the most part, the wounds from the red pen have healed and the scaring has been greatly reduced. Since the process of writing is difficult enough without discouraging words from teachers, it is imperative that harsh criticism be chased out of the writing classroom for the good of all students.
‘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.
English 102 demands my full attention as much as humanly possible. From the first day I walked into your classroom this semester, I knew I was going to be pushed to produce the work I know I am capable of generating. Although I felt English 102 was going to be a challenge, I felt I had a major advantage over the rest of the peers in our class. The advantage undoubtedly being that I had the same professor the foregoing semester. By choosing a professor whom I felt comfortable writing for, as well as an increased comfort level with your familiar teaching style and grading scheme, I felt I would have the easiest transition into your classroom. Instead of taking a different English 102 class with a new professor who would take half of the semester to learn my name, let alone my writing style, I was confident that you would be able to pick up on my weaknesses and help me exploit my strengths as a writer. For instance, last semester you helped me to spot my ongoing weaknesses in my writing style such excessive run-on sentences, proper grammar and the use of appropriate punctuation where necessary. I knew these weaknesses were going to be a challenge in that I saw them as “carryover” problems from year to year in my schooling. You also have helped me to realize what strengths I possess and, in turn, carryover from year to year as well. For instance, the confidence in my ability to summarize and synthesize material from varied sources as well as my ability to write creatively have all given me the self-assurance I need to write with meaning and purpose.
This article is written by Lenin Irvin, who presents the challenges that students have to face when they are required to write academic writing tasks in college and introduces to students to what Academic writing is like. To start off the article introduces "Myths about writing". These myths are misconceptions that students tend to use as rules for a perfect writing. However these don’t just not help, but also lead them to failure. The author also states a crucial step which is developing the “writer sense” .This “writer sense” refers to the awareness of the writing situation in general. In a writing piece a student should see the difference between speaking and writing the article and use the correct punctuation and choice the appropriated
Opinions. One quote I disagreed with was, “It seems to me that middle-class culture, and schooling gratuitously and foolishly rob children of the pleasures of the physical and intellectual work of learning generally and writing in particular” (21). This is invalid. Not everyone grows up around writing, and reading. Sometimes reading and writing isn’t fun for everyone. It can be boring, or even hard to follow. Reading and writing are a choice, not a requirement. Following onto that quote was one of my favorite quotations by Savannah which stated, “I despaired of becoming a writer whenever a grade or comment even hinted I had not learned and meticulously followed all the rules of spelling, punctuation, and grammar” (3). I do agree with this quote because criticism does break down one’s integrity, and devotion to their work to keep on going. If there is continuous negative feedback given, then it prevents writers from continuing on. I have always struggled as a writer, and I do not appreciate receiving negative criticism. However; when I was younger, my parents had always told me that “criticism is the key to success”. In order to succeed, one must fail as an individual to set higher goals, and actions
It was one gloomy afternoon that my friend and I were on the phone talking about how our day was going. I complained to her how finals week is almost here and how there is so much to do with so little time. She, on the other hand, had an interesting story to tell that day and thought it connected well with my group assigned subject. She said it was a hot sunny day to be running a mile for a fitness examination. They were to run four two hundred meters to equal a mile. While she was running, the coach constantly yelled and accused her of cheating to complete the mile. She also said that the coach did not yell at the girls who just kept walking to complete the mile. I, then, asked her if the coach wa...
Subtle ridicule is certainly something that I’ve seen happen to people around me, and how these people deal with it is precisely how I believe it should be dealt with. My classmate—let’s call him “Fintan”—used to get playfully picked on by his fellow “friends”, mostly in a joking matter, but, if Fintan took it the wrong way, the jokes could have hurt a lot. How did he get along with these snide comments? There were three main stages that I had identified, firstly, acceptance. Fintan understood that in teasing, stereotyping, or insults, the ones that hurt the most are the ones with a bit of truth in them. For example, “You’re fat” was a common joke-insult back in grade 6. Fintan was a studious student, and he had little to no time for exercising, or any other activity besides homework, studying, eating, and sleeping. He had managed to realize that that was the truth behind the swipe, and this realisation shone out in his latter stages. The next stage was purely a mental process, where I imagine Fintan isolated the blip of truth that his perpetrator(s) brought out, then replaced the negative connotation with one that he could improve himself with. Continuing off the aforementioned example, Fintan repeated the truth to himself, and realised that he had
I was a typical 6th grader with a love for social time and hatred towards pointless homework. As I was tapping my foot on my creaking wooden desk with my book opened pretending to read, Mr. Daniels was watching over me like a bird that just gave birth to chicken eggs. I had a feeling she was going to ask me a question about what I was reading. I realized from that point on to always trust my instincts. Mrs. Daniels tall toothpick shaped body leaned over and asked me to summarize the first chapter in front of the whole class. Due to not even beginning to read the first page I told her I did not even know where to begin. Since I was not prepared for class, not participating, and being rude about my task at hand I received a punishment. My punishment was every week I had to write a summary in my own words about the chapter I had read. My eyes rolled in the back of my head so far I didn't know if they would ever go back to normal. I knew my life was over at this
However in 8th grade I had an inspiring teacher, Ms. Moe. She told us to write whatever we felt on paper, to create stories from our lives, to write from our souls. Of course all of my stories were morbid with sinister events, but well written. (Maybe because I would spend all the time I could with her, so I would revise and revise until it was perfect- well at least for an 8th grader.) Writing My Past as a Writer was a great way to remind me why writing was alright. This paper was a little easier to write because it was my story. I had to revise it a bit and add some more background to what I was writing in the class, such as my Johnathn story (there are more of them too). As to let the reader know why Ms. Moe called me ‘disturbed’, but that was not hard. I’m sure Ms. Geary was a little concerned after reading this, wondering if she needed to report that I’m unstable or a threat to others, but no I just enjoy writing things that get my dark side out (I’m stable now, I promise). Getting a perfect score the first time, I still revised it and added things I thought would make it even better to read. Peer reviewing with Russell was great because he had some great insight in how to portray my reputation. Havi...
“Wounmee, come back here.” I stopped on my way back to my desk, wondering what I did now. “Can you explain to me what you were intending to do here?” My teacher hands me back my essay with her eyebrows knitted together and her forehead crinkled in confusion. I took the paper and carefully inspected i. To my shock I had written some words in the first paragraph backwards and upside down. Embarrassed, I quickly hurried to my desk and changed the words back to normal. This time when I handed in my essay, she gave me a condescending look, making me feel crummy.
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.
I do believe the teachers were right about me rambling on in my papers and not placing sentences in the right order and I sometimes I don’t make sense. It’s probably one of my biggest struggle/problems that I hope to fix in the future. Think I’ve had a lot of breakthroughs in the class and I’m doing a lot better than I ever expected to do. I really liked this class and I made a really good friend, Raynah which I sit next
I am not the kind of person who talks or writes much. Putting my thoughts on papers is something I have always struggled with doing. I believe this class will help me improve on transferring my thoughts to paper, in an organized fashion. I look forward to becoming a better writer because of this class.
Writing is an important part of everyone’s life, whether we use it in school, in the workplace, as a hobby or in personal communication. It is important to have this skill because it helps us as writers to express feelings and thoughts to other people in a reasonably permanent form. Formal writing forms like essays, research papers, and articles stimulates critically thinking. This helps the writer to learn how to interpret the world around him/her in a meaningful way. In college, professors motivate students to write in a formal, coherent manner, without losing their own voice in the process. Improving your writing skills is important, in every English class that’s the main teaching point; to help students improve their writing skills. Throughout my college experience I have acknowledge that
Over the course of the semester, I feel that I have grown as a writer in many ways. When I came into the class, there were skills I had that I already excelled at. During my time in class, I have come to improve on those skills even more. Before I took this class, I didn’t even realise what I was good at. This is the first class where I felt I received feedback on my writing that helped me to actually review my work to see what areas I lacked in and where I succeeded.
It seemed like a normal day when I entered Mrs. A’s AP Language and Composition class, but little did I know that she was going to assign a very important project that was going to take forever. I took my seat and wrote down what was on the board. Then I sat patiently and waited for Mrs. A to come explain what we were doing today. When the tardy bell rang, Mrs. A glided into the room and gave us all a stack of papers. She then proceeded to discuss our upcoming assignment, a memoir. As she explained the very important assignment, I wondered whom I would write about. No one really came to mind to write about and I thought for sure I would never be able to get this thing done on time. I finally decided that I would write in on my mother, Kari Jenson. I knew I would probably put the project off until the very end and do it the weekend before even though it would get on my mom’s nerves. Putting work off was just how I did everything, it worked for me. When I arrived home from school that day, I told mom about the project. I told her I would most likely write it about her and she was overjoyed.