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College-level writing strategies
Theory on outcome based education
College-level writing strategies
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Introduction
I signed up for English 131 because I enjoy writing and figured it would be a fun and informative course in which I could learn writing strategies to help me in my college career and beyond. I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty good writer, as I took AP English classes in high school and it has always been a subject I’ve naturally gravitated towards. This course exceeded my expectations as to what I could learn in ten weeks. I feel that my writings skills have developed in all aspects, and I can take the skills I have learned and applied them to other courses and my future career. It’s an extremely good feeling after finishing an assignment, reading it over, and feeling very proud of how I was able to develop my thoughts and resources into something that has the potential to make a lasting impact on its readers.
In this portfolio, I will exhibit my understanding of the four course outcomes and showcase how I was able to demonstrate each one effectively in my writing throughout the quarter. The purpose of these outcomes is to develop skills that are essential for becoming a successful academic writer,
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I knew that I should have a thesis, a few body paragraphs with evidence, a paragraph dedicated to the counterargument and a conclusion. After learning to replace the thesis with a complex claim, my writing has really evolved because it forces me to plan out the organization of my papers in advance, and can be used as a point of reference whenever I’m unsure about which direction to go next. The first draft of my Short Assignment 1 – Advertisement Genre Analysis is a pretty good example of how I wrote most of my papers in high school. After going back and revising the assignment for this portfolio, the final result is an excellent showcase of how my writing has evolved and become more thoughtful and
After reading our mentors notes and analyzing what we have learned through this term, I have read all assignments that were submitted before our midterm exam. This gave me chance to follow up with how I advanced my writing skills from the beginning. As it was interesting to see how I can point out the missing qualities of these essays, it was nice to see our mentor’s notes justifying my points.
My development as a writer has flourished throughout this semester. The first week of this fall semester started out with writing responses from our readings in the textbook. Looking back through and analyzing my reading responses at the semester to now; I noticed a substantial improvement in not only my grammar skills, but also my summarizing, and in-depth studying of writing adeptness. Another way I have progressed this semester is the vocabulary of my writing has significantly improved and become more scholarly. Another advancement I noticed was that the content of my work has matured, along with my organizational adeptness.
During my first semester of college, I felt like this course overshadowed all the others. I faced many challenges, gained better habits, and even increased the value of myself as a scholar. Not only did my professor provide her students with the course material she built a confidence inside of us that will allow us to be able to tackle any task, especially pertaining to any written compositions. The things that I have learned from this course could and will be applied to any and everything I do from here on out, whether that writing an essay or even taking a test. Again, the journey was long, but I will be forever grateful for the things that I, and all of my peers have gained from this
Dual Enrollment English was the first real college-level class I ever had. I actually have taken other college-level classes before it, but Dual Enrollment English was the only course that gave me an accurate representation of how college will really be like and what it will expect of me. My journey through Dual Enrollment English began with a sense of fear and self-defeat and ended with a sense of satisfaction and confidence with many highs and lows along the way. This portfolio catalogs the evolution of my writing during my two semesters in Dual Enrollment English including seven different types of papers as well as each of their respective drafts and tutor feedback.
As the semester finally approaches the finish line, I revisit my past work to compare and contrast how this class has developed me into a successful writer at the college level. Throughout the year my writing style has developed and become broader as I have learned how to incorporate more of my personal views as well as reliable, unbiased information. This portfolio is a representation of how many things I have learned along the way while being an English 102 student.
I am currently an English 160 student who is hoping to move on to the next course, which is English 161. I understand the requirements for English 161. It require students to explore a topic in some depth and conduct independent research related to that topic. Conducting research allows students to learn what it is like to participate in academic culture, posing questions about important issues and developing an argument in response to what others have said. It expected students to learn the most valuable skill in college, which is critical thinking. Students have to be able to read challenging readings. Although I still have problems with English, I think I’m qualified to move on.
Over the course of the semester, my writing developed from elementary level into an undergraduate college student’s. I was able to overcome many weaknesses and learn the proper ways on effectively writing a paper. The given writing assignments became the symbol for my “practice makes perfect (in my case improvement).
Looking back at my time from English 112 gave me a greater feel and look at what kind of writer I am ultimately am. While going through my senior year of high school and taking a college level class I was skeptical if I was even able to accomplish that high of a writing requirement but to my surprise I fought my way through. In my journey of fighting until the end I learned a good amount about myself that even if I wasn’t feeling up to writing the five page papers that we had to write I always found myself doing them at the end. Seeing this made me realize that I’m the kind of person who will finish the task given to them on the day it is due no matter what my mood or condition is because it is my duty to show that I’m responsible enough to
As the first semester of my sophomore year wraps up, I begin to realize that I have learned a lot in all of my classes. The class that I learned the most from has definitely been my English 111 course. This class have given me so many opportunities to improve my writing skills. With all of the success I’ve had in this class, I believe I will do just fine with writing later in my life.
...ragraphs that support the argument. The easiest part of this component was actually inserting it in my essay after I understood the purpose for it, because at the beginning I was confused on the whole thesis concept. The thesis was the most challenging because I kept asking myself "Can I really argue this for five to six pages?" and also "Is this even considered a thesis statement?" I noticed that I can speak and write more effectively when I'm thinking critically and intellectually. My sentence structure has always been strong and I feel it has grown because of the practice we have had in class with finding thesis statements in our readings. My overall issue with this component of the writing process is using a justifiable argument and remembering to support my argument with claims and trying not to put unnecessary points in my paper while maintaining my ethos.
During the course of the semester, all of the writing and research skills I developed helps to strengthen my self-confidence in many areas and it aids me in achieving my goals for the future. By developing more effective research approaches for finding and citing sources, I advanced from an inexperienced writer to a confident writer with the suitable knowledge to create effective essays to capture my audience. Having confidence in my abilities to use the skills I learned will help me to become a success in college. With more practice and valuation of my strengths and weaknesses, I can continue to improve and become an excellent communicator in the future.
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 in see what areas I lacked in and where I succeeded. Some of the skills I had shocked me as I didn’t think I had those capabilities in me.
I feel as though this class has helped me become a more polished and professional writer. When I first entered English 110, I was extremely unsure and lacked confidence in my writing. I believe that this point can be partly attributed to the fact that I had always had my instructors holding my hand and helping me through the writing process in high school. My senior English teacher always reminded us that college would be much more challenging than her class was and then she would go on to tell us stories of professors who gave out zeros for tiny oversights within a paper. This combined with general apprehension about college life left me terrified. I had always been a strong writer in high school; I know how to form an argument and support
As I look back on my schooling I can’t believe how many papers I’ve written throughout my life. Naturally as I’ve grown up, my writing has developed from learning how to write sentences all the way up to the pages of essays that consist of deeper criteria. I know for a fact that I’m a better writer now than I was before. College writing is more challenging and I’ve had to learn how to adjust to it.
Much like Benjamin Franklin believed, I feel that a person should take advantage of the time the person has in life with activities a person wants to do or needs to do. A person should not spend much time on activities the person does not want to do. Life is way too short to concern oneself with work or other activities one wants nothing to do with all the time. When possible, I try to forget about my responsibility and just let go of the ‘things’ that do not matter to me. I think a person should try to occupy oneself with something productive, worthwhile, or necessary at all times. Even though a person’s life is left up to a person to live, I cannot imagine thinking that I owe my time to society through working a job that I simply despise. I am a compassionate person, but I do not owe anyone anything regarding my time.