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College-level writing strategies
The importance of written communication
The importance of written communication
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During this fast paced eight weeks writing course, I have learned an endless amount of information that would benefit me throughout my entire life. First, I have learned that in order to produce a well written paper, I most first find a topic that I am passionate about. Writing about things that I have a passion for have helped me write more efficiently. I no longer spend unnecessary time figuring out what I want my message to be, the words flow naturally. Second, I have learned that writing is all about structure and tone. I now pay close attention to make sure that my paragraph has a topic and concluding sentence and make sure to write for my target audience. Third, I have learned to believe in the way I write because I have notice that
Entering this course I was worried because I have struggled with writing in the past, and writing has never been my strongest area. I feared writing classes in middle and high school, and had the same expectations for this course. I had wondered if I was ready for college English, and was worried that my skills and abilities would not be one the level they needed to be for college courses. My attitude and understanding of my writing process have both changed since the beginning of this semester. One thing that really helped my attitude and confidence was the fact that I was able to complete the assignments and get a decent grade. I was worried that I might not be able to do college level writing, and when I started completing the assignments and learning new ways to write my confidence and attitude changed. Another thing that really helped me throughout this course was that there was plenty of reading and information available to guide me through my assignments. I realized that there was more freedom when it comes to writing than I had experienced in high school. Being able to write more freely, and the freedom to choose what subjects I would write over made the assignments more enjoyable and easier to
In the past three months I feel like I have accomplished a great deal. As the semester comes to an end I find myself reflecting not only how I have survived the first semester but also what I have learned. The most important thing I have learned so far is how to become a better writer. I did not think it could really happen to me. I did not think I could handle all the work. I did not think I could actually become a better writer. Some how after all the hours of writing, and putting effort into the papers that I wrote this semester, I became a better writer. I did this because I concentrated on two very important areas, with the attitude of, if I could just become better in those then I would become a better writer. With help from an awesome teacher and a reliable tutor I have become a better writer by improving my skills in the areas of procrastination and content.
Most of us write in some form every day, so you would expect that most of us would be well practiced and pretty good at writing. I read and write all the time; I have been taken several college courses and nearly all of them require write of some form. However, before taking this class not only was I not a good writer, I knew I wasn’t a good writer. Now I am not saying that I am ready to write my first novel, but I certainly more confident in turning in my college papers. The content of this course and the style of teaching was incredibly beneficial to me. Throughout this course we had multiple assignments that were aimed to improve us as writers. I am sure that everyone took something different from this course, and I am sure that each student took more from some areas than others; however for me there were three major things that I saw that I benefited from most. Our weekly craft lessons, grammar plan, but most of all, observational learning.
Unit 1 taught me to focus on each step in the writing process. Approaching the task
Throughout this semester I have learned many ways of writing through two main essays literacy narrative and comparison and contrast. These two essays have taught me how to correctly fix my comma splices, thesis statements, and capitalization. I have engaged in numerous learning material during this summer class. Many times when I thought it would be hard to work on those three developments I never gave up. I gain more positive feedback from my teacher because he pointed out most of my mistakes I made on both literacy narrative and comparison and contrast essays to help me understand what is it that I need to work on. My development as a writer became stronger.
Before taking this course my writing styles and habits were very different. I was the typical procrastinator because I would wait until the night before a paper was due to start it. This did not allow me enough time to properly proofread everything, which resulted in getting points deducted for simple grammatical errors that could have been avoided if I would have had the time to proofread. My writing styles have many strengths and weaknesses and I have been able to improve my writing because of them. I have learned from my strengths and weaknesses how to become a better writer.
Looking back over the course of the semester, I feel that I learned many new and interesting uses for technology within the classroom – both for classrooms that have a lot of technology and for classrooms that are limited with technology. For the majority of the class, we utilized William Kists’ book The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age (2010), which provided multiple modes of instruction that both utilized and/or created technology. One of the first things that I remember, and consequently that stuck with me through the course’s entirety, is that individuals must treat everything as a text. Even a garden is a text. The statement made me change the way that I traditionally viewed Language Arts both as a student and as a teacher, as I very narrowly saw literature and works of the like as texts only; however, by considering nearly anything as a text, one can analyze, study, and even expand his/her knowledge. Kist (2010) states that society is “experiencing a vast transformation of the way we “read” and “write,” and a broadening of the way we conceptualize “literacy” (p. 2). In order to begin to experience and learn with the modern classroom and technologically advanced students, individuals must begin to see new things as literature and analyze those things in a similar manner.
Over the past semester, I have found the most challenging part of this course to simply be the transition from high school composition classes to college. Because writing expectations are so different in college than in high school, even with AP and Dual Enrollment “college level” classes, I first found myself being overwhelmed with the pressure to write the perfect first draft. The pressure came from knowing how much a final draft of a paper contributed to my grade. This left me sitting in front of my computer for hours at a time with thoughts of what I wanted to say racing through my head, but unable to deliver these thoughts into organized, structured sentences. I learned, through writing my persuasive essay, that instead of trying to write the paper start to finish and already in its perfect form, it is easier for me to look at the paper through its different components and focus on them individually, then work to best organize my ideas fluently.
Taking a writing course is the fundamental structure to gain reading and writing techniques to become a successful learner in everyday life professionally and educationally. The skills that I will learn in this course will directly transfer to my other college courses. Taking English 1010 will help me think more critically and rhetorically. Writing is not only an important academic skill, but it’s also an important skill in any career field. Almost all jobs require you to have some form of writing on the job to be considered qualified. For example, nurses write medical reports on patients. Learning how to become a better reader and writer will help me become more successful in college.
Upon signing up to go to Havana, Cuba with the Education Studies Department of Spelman College, I knew I was guaranteed to gain life long experiences and tools. However, I did not realize the depth and quality of those tools. Although, I have have traveled abroad before -- I have never used scotopic lens to directly focus on the needs of others. Instead, I most often use photopic lens, as in the United States, opportunity is portrayed to be so apparently bright that you have to find the darkness. For example, when a privileged American person is acting entitled and like the world around them is falling apart (even though it is a minuscule problem), one would say, "You have it so good! Think about all the children in Sudan who are sleeping
Before this class started I considered myself to be an average writer who has good ideas but has a tough time connecting these ideas. My thoughts were able to create good topics and discussions in my papers, but I couldn't successfully put them in correct order and reasoning giving most of my papers poor structure. As I wrote more papers and learned new tricks, I saw my writing skills improve. The summary paper was the best grade I received on all of the papers this year.
Now that we are at the end of the semester, I have seen some big improvements in my own writing process. At the start of the semester I was barely able to write more then four paragraph. This was due to my critical thinking skills. Critical thinking as one of the most important thing a writer can have. Being able to critical think is one aspect of my writing that I have always struggled with. Having taken this course, I have learned how to improve my critical thinking skills and get past the typical four to five paragraph
For my assignment I have decided to choose a group which I have just finished taking for level 1 Hairdressing and they have progressed on to level 2 Hairdressing. This is within my current role as a hairdressing lecturer at Hugh Baird College which I have done since October. Within this group there are a couple of people who have support workers. There is one student within the group who has severe learning difficulties and is a more mature student. She also has many health problems which results in her having to carry an oxygen tank around for when she has any problems with her breathing due to her having problems with her heart. There is also another student in the class who has learning difficulties, she is very clever but just needs someone there for when she needs something explaining. She also has a support worker that comes in to give her support. This student has also been going through personal problems at home and has attendance issues. There is another student within this group who has severe dyslexia. She doesn’t have a support worker but the support people who are in there do give her help as she can have a tendency to give up, not to listen and just needs to be kept on track so by sitting next to a person that does have a support worker she gets the help from them. These three students have all had their level 1 qualification extended for a year were the rest of the group have progressed on to level 2 Hairdressing. Two of these students may progress on to level 2 but one doesn’t have the ability to be able to do this as the requirements are too high for her. The reason the course was extended for them was because they were struggling with the work that was required for this qualification, but as the col...
During this College Composition course, I came across numerous obstacles and educational involvements. Every factor of this course contributed to my overall learning experience. For starters, we often read out of our textbooks, “The Little Seagull Handbook” and “They Say I Say”. These books helped showcase proper writing techniques. In addition, we would have class discussions that everyone would participate in. This opened my eyes to different viewpoints that could influence my writing. I recall one class we had a debate over a topic and everyone had to choose a side to argue. Then when we wrote argument essays, even though they were on a different topic, it helped me view my topic in different ways. Lastly, the most helpful to my writing was peer review. We were told to read our paper out loud to our partner. Although personally I am quiet and dislike reading out loud, I found this very helpful. Instantly, my partner and I could find grammar mistakes that one may not pick up on while reading silently. Then we could also talk about other possible revisions for my paper. For every paper, we would have conferences with the professor. This was effective as well to have a professional giving corrections and ideas. When we would get back our graded rubrics on the assignments we completed, the instructor would leave comments to
I think college writing one was very beneficial for me in writing papers. I have had a hard time with writing papers in the past years. I have always had a hard time with making long sentences, and using better word choices. Also I struggled with making sentences flow smooth, and most of my sentences didn't make sense. However, with editing my papers out loud helped me create a smooth sentence. These are a few things I knew I had a time with going into college writing one. I was hoping I could practice and learn more on how to write an effective paper as best as I could. I will just be reflecting on the four papers I wrote in my college writing class this year.