For the international students, if they want to study abroad, like United States, they have to take many exams, like SAT or ACT, TOEFL or IELTS and AP. It is a big challenge for people whose home language is not English. At my high school, which is in China, we only need to write about 5 sentences or 120 words for an essay on the exam. However, when we prepare for the SAT, we need to write an 800 words minimum essay in 25 minutes. And for the TOEFL test, we need to write two different essays, which are 500 words minimum on each one in 60 minutes. That sounds like an impossible mission for someone who doesn’t write like that before. For me, those are definitely hard works. Nevertheless, I got through the exams in one year and became an international student in United States, specifically at Michigan State University, where I need to complete my language test and study English until I pass it.
In the class – WRA150, the first paper was about literacy. At first, I felt like at a loss, because I did not even know what was the meaning of literacy. But after I read some examples that professor Gerber put on Angel, I finally figured out what I wanted to write. Therefore, I think the examples, which are on Angel or professor Gerber shows during the class, those are really helpful for me. So for this paper, I wrote it like a adventure and I looked back to my first trip when I first came to Michigan State University, from when I got off the plane to the time I arrived on the campus.
Every time we finished writing a draft, professor Gerber asked us to do the peer review. I think that was really helpful, because I could learn something from others opinions, then revised it to make it better. Another reason I liked that was I cou...
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...asses, I might have some reading to do and I might need to finish a book in two weeks. I could use my reading skills, such as skim the first few pages. I could also use the dialogic note taking skills to help me understand the ideas easily. At the meanwhile, if I needed to use a quote in the research for my major – dietetics research, I could use a “SANDWICH” quote – introduced the quote I was going to use first, and then quoted it, finally explained more about the quote.
My writing skills are still making progress. Even though I am one of the international students who study at MSU, and my English is not so good at the beginning, I can write a paper which is 1,200 words minimum easier now, and I am not that much worry about the time limit for my paper; because I am getting more and more comfortable with writing, and I believe that I can do better in the future.
In the article of Daniel Richards, the author mentions about in-class peer review. Daniel shows the readers about two types of students who were facing the in-class peer review. One student acts very nervous and he is scared about being shamed if he read his draft in front of his classmates. Other student acts like very confident about his writing and be ready to show his classmates how good he is in writing. In-class peer review exists some social factor about feeling. It may get hurts, the emotion of your classmates and your teacher, feeling shamed when your classmates rate your draft bad. However, the feedback from your peers will motivate your writing somehow. You will know which your weak side and strong side are, then you use it in order
As I look back into my high school years, I thought I wrote papers well. But then coming into a college environment, my papers were mediocre. By overlooking at my past papers, I found that they were unorganized, sloppy and had bad use of diction. From now on, I will use the tools I learned in English 1100-40 as a foundation for the future papers I intend on writing in college. Following the criteria of organizing ideas so that they flow, impacting the reader with diction and also by being creative, will help become an ideal writer. Following the criteria of staying motivated in short and long term goals, taking responsibility for actions and finally the ability to study well will help me develop into a supreme student.
There are numerous traits found in the world that are said to give us our humanity; These traits can be as simple as compassion for others, or as complex as a desire to rule and conquer. There are two crucial developments, however, that have contributed greatly to the development of human civilization - the development of writing and the creation of a hierarchical social structure. These two developments in human history have become the building blocks for the way that we live our day-to-day lives. Both writing and social hierarchies have evolved along with our society, spreading throughout the world and becoming key factors in the future of our civilization.
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.
The following final drafts, drafts, notes, and peer review letters represent my growth as a writer in the span of one semester. I learned quite a bit about myself and the things i can do to improve my writing and the methods of doing proper research in order to write a proper research essay. Though i have seen an improvement within these essays, i feel i still have much to practice upon.
As a second language learner I have never expected myself to be a perfect writer throughout the semester. Even If English was my first language still, I would not be a perfect writer. It is not about first or second language, it is about how well I understand the learning objectives. Then organizing and writing with my own ideas and putting them in my paper. I am going to be honest, I am not good at English subject and English subject is my strongest weakness than the other subjects. In this paper I will discuss and analyze my own writing, reflecting on the ways that my writing has improved throughout the semester.
My literacy journey commenced at a young age. My story begins with the typical bed time stories and slowly progresses into complex novels. Some points in my literacy journey have made me admire the written word but other times literacy frustrated me. These ups and downs within my story have made me the person I am today. My parents noticed that my reading was not up to par with other children in kindergarten and I was diagnosed with mild dyslexia at the age of five. My parents provided me a reading mentor named Mrs. Mandeville who has shaped my literacy journey in many ways. Events in my childhood have shaped my literacy in various ways.
Gradually through the whole semester, Peer Review sessions became a great and positive influence on my writing. It is very helpful to have two people with different views on writing read and critique my paper, and give me feedback on what they think I should improve or correct. We didn’t change peer review groups and I was very delighted because I have gotten a chance to see my group members grow as a writer. When it’s time to revise my paper before I turn it in for a grade, it is very helpful to have some options on what to exactly revise in my paper. For example, in my comparative analysis essay, both of my peer reviewers wrote that my introduction was not effective and i...
It was a dark, cold, cloudy day. The clouds covered the sky like a big black sheet, nothing to be seen except darkness that seemed to go on forever. This was the third day in a row that there had been complete darkness, there was no getting rid of it. This was because of ‘the meteorite.’
Eden considered herself a master of the death stare, and it shut people up most of the time. Black-ringed eyes, wide and uninviting--it's what she excelled at. Her stare said: "don't even dream of talking to me."
Writing has been my most challenging requirement through school. I am not a very experienced writer. I was not required to write much in high school until my last semester. My last semester in high school, about a year and half ago, I took GENR-091 which is the last time I have written a paper longer than one page. That was my most recent writing class; I am rusty to say the least.
I actually love to write because, it's really expressing how I feel about a certain topic. Some areas of my writing I believe still need improvement would be my vocabulary and punctuation. I want to be able to use higher vocabulary in my writing like college vocabulary. Also, wanting to know where I have to put commas and capitalization. Some goals I plan to attain for second semester is increase in vocabulary, and writing in a more academic or formal tone. The steps I have to take in order to achieve these goals would be to search up better usage in words also look over others essays and comprehend off of those. If I'm able to improve these goals, I believe my writing skills will be completed. Therefore, I hope I'm able to achieve these goals and become a greater writer than I am
The peer review assessment was very helpful for me because I learned the faults about my paper through my fellow students. I realized my strengths and weakness in my paper. The strengths of my paper are my use of details. The weakness of my paper is I get extremely off topic and start to wander off. I have learned to use more vivid imagery to describe my writing. I was extremely impacted by this peer review because I worked with people that I like.
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.
Before taking English 1A, I was a discouraged writer because as an English learner, I did not believe that I had any ability to be an acceptable writer. Therefore, I did not have any joy while I was doing writing assignments. However, I have gradually loved writing through this semester. I fortunately got plenty of helps from my classmates and professor; thus, my writing skills have gotten improved a lot. I currently can feel that writing is a quite enjoyable process, and I like delivering my ideas to other people by writing, too. I am really proud that I have enhanced my pre-writing skills, writing structure and revising skills and have learned how to write an effective thesis statement and how to deal with rhetorical analysis. However, I still have lots of deficiencies in my articles, such as grammar problem and the lack of logical transition.