My English 101 Experience

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The English classes that I have taken over the course of my years in school have always been greatly enjoyable. Fortunately, I've been lucky to have had amazing teachers, more than eager to aid me in improving my writing. I believe that as far as my writing skills, there is always room for improvement. There will always be another vocabulary word to learn, or a writing style to master. Although I am not necessarily striving for perfection (I don't dream of being the next Mark Twain or F. Scott Fitzgerald), improving my personal best is what I am invariably working towards. This year in English 101 has served as a very significant step in my writing journey. It gave me a push into the “bootcamp” of college writing, while still retaining certain aspects of writing that I find truly enjoyable. Looking back to my experiences in English 101, I believe that there exists a slight gap between high school and college level writing. In high school, my teachers never completely enforced formatting of our papers too much. They tended to place more emphasis on the actual content of our writing, versus the framework of the paper. After taking this English 101 course, I now believe that I have a strong grasp of what is expected when composing formal papers, MLA formatting, in-text citations and all. I used to have a slight fear of college writing exactly for this reason. After being taught the ropes, I now know that although formatting may be highly specific, it is very doable. Another difference that I have experienced coming into English 101 was the stern page limits. I have always been used to English teachers praising my peers and I for going over minimum page requirements. In college, this is not the case. Page limits are strict, and I... ... middle of paper ... ...f MLA. I was also assisted in improving my thesis statement for all three of my essays. I truly tried to do my best when writing my essays the first time around, which is why I believe I did not need to make major changes for my final papers. English 101 has definitely been a wonderful experience. Ashley made the course very enjoyable, and retained the fun aspects of writing, which I thought would fade away upon entering college. In the end, one point of improvement that I have noticed is that I have refined my ability to articulate myself in writing (thanks to the various styles of writing we did). I can write with feeling. As for my future in writing, I hope to improve my scope of vocabulary, and I believe I could start by reading a lot more. English 101 has taught me the ropes of writing in a delightful way, and I can only hope that English 102 will be the same!

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