...This class wasn’t exactly what I expected, I was not ready and misjudged myself. The way I write isn’t any different, in my opinion, besides the fact I think more about what I’m writing if it's good, and having someone proofread it. This class showed me that I am not a writer, and don’t want to be one. I did not grow as much as expected as a writer, I thought I was going to get better with comma splices, but no improvement. I could improve more on my sentence structure, paragraph transitions, word choice, and my ideas could be more organized. I don’t know how I will compensate for this in the future, I honestly don’t. I guess when I have someone check it, to go over it with me on what I’m struggling with. From what I did learn, it would...
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...entering writing seminar my expectations were that I would only have to write my college essays. Even more, I came into the class expecting to make my college essay the best it could be and that was it. I didn’t expect to have write any other essays, but in the end it worked out for the better. Throughout the semester, I was able to develop and nurture my writing skills. Not only was I writing to get into college, but also to prepare for college. However, my overall approach to writing has changed for the better since first beginning Writing Seminar. At first, I based my writing on the basic 5 paragraph technique, but as I progressed through the year, I realized that writing doesn’t really have a specific technique, but instead revolves around the idea of being able to flow. After basing my writing on flow instead of...
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...honest, I do not enjoy writing. I find it tiring, frustrating and immensely difficult. I struggle with fully conveying what I am trying to say, and find all the little rules infuriating. I get why this class is important though. As someone who struggles with writing, it is important that I develop the skills to properly make an argument, research, or form a proper paragraph. And I legitimately think this class has taught me a number of valuable lessons when it comes to writing. The first thing is clarity. Before this class, I had the bad habit of artificially extending my essays by using fancy-sounding convoluted language. This worked in high school, I was able to get away with this method in order to artificially extend the length of my paper and make myself seem more intelligent than I actually was. When I started this class, I quickly learned that doing that was a bad idea. Over the course of the quarter, I have tried to be much more concise and to the point with my writing. This can be seen especially well in my research essay, where I try to avoid unnecessarily repeating myself and get right to the point after bringing in data. While I still do fluff out my...
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...Writing and Myself | Matthew McMahonUNIV104-1402B-18: Academic and Career SuccessJune 22, 2014 | When I first enrolled into this course, I felt all different kinds of emotions and wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from UNIV104. I would have thoughts in my head leading up to this class spinning in my head every night before the first day. Some thoughts like, “Maybe this will be my best class!” and “This class will be easy because I love writing!” were good thoughts that helped me boost my confidence about my college course. Other thoughts loomed in my head as well such as, “Do I really belong in this class?”, and “I’m probably going to fail this class with just one assignment!” Such thoughts as these brought my spirits and gave me a pessimistic outlook on this class. But now that I am done with this class, I find myself to be more at ease with myself and have a newfound confidence in the way that write. Writing has been an important form of expression for me. I find myself to be very soft spoken and speaking verbally is usually difficult for me because I can’t always seem to find the right words to say. This has led me to be very shy in class. With writing, I feel that I am more expressive and have more control over what I want to say. Writing is therapeutic for me, whatever I cannot say directly I can just pour out my heart and soul. I have been keeping a journal for the past eight years and it has done wonders for me. I find myself not only...
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...Second Semester Final Exam: Portfolio A: Narrative/Descriptive Writing Parasailing (Vignette) Narrative and descriptive writing is the writing style I enjoy the most. The vignette I wrote about is a story that happened to me when I was younger and this kind of writing allows me to relive this memory on paper. I find this kind of writing easier to write and easy to relate to because it’s all about me. It is harder for me to write and relate to a book that we read in class since it isn’t about my personal life. This kind of writing style helps me reflect on the something I learned because I have seen how much I have grown this school year based off of what I wrote about and my writing style. This kind of writing style allows me to describe...
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...Roen−Glau−Maid: The McGraw−Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, 2/e II. Using What You’ve Learned to Share Information The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, Second Edition 4. Writing to Share Experience © The McGraw−Hill Companies, 2011 13 Reading, Inquiry, and Research ■ PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information 57 TANYA BARRIENTOS Se Habla Español MEMOIR he man on the other end of the phone line is 1 Tanya Maria telling me the classes I’ve called about are firstBarrientos has rate: native speakers in charge, no more than six stuwritten for the dents per group. Philadelphia “Conbersaychunal,” he says, allowing the fat vow- 2 Inquirer for more than els of his accented English to collide with the sawedtwenty years. off consonants. I tell him that will be fi ne, that I’m familiar with 3 Barrientos was born in Guatethe conversational setup, and yes, I’ve studied a bit mala and raised of Spanish in the past. He asks for my name and I in El Paso, Texas. Her first novel, Frontera Street, was supply it, rolling the double r in Barrientos like a pro. published in 2002, and her second, That’s when I hear the silent snag, the momentary Family Resemblance, was pubhesitation I’ve come to expect at this part of the exlished in 2003. Her column “Unchange. Should I go into it again? Should I explain, conventional Wisdom” runs every the way I have to half a dozen others, that I am Guaweek in the Inquirer. This...
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...When I first thought about my English 11 class I was thinking about how I wanted to better myself in the future. I was hoping that I would get a teacher that would help me improve my writing skills and help me improve my SAT score and I received my wish. I ended up getting Mrs. Miles as a my English teacher and I was very excited to get her as a teacher because I wanted to see how fun she makes English and it was a lot of fun.Writing is like cooking you can only have a few ingredients but, you can make something actually mouth-watering out of it. Overall, I have greatly improved my writing skills for the future. The first essay that I would like to talk about is my Romanticism Fictional Narrative that I made in my 10th grade English class. The reason why I chose to talk about this essay is because it shows how creative I can without an outline. What I liked about this essay is how creative and descriptive it is. I made this essay by basically going off what my brain imagined. What I learned from this essay is when I do not use an an outline my ideas are more artistic....
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...Sometimes I wonder if I’m going to get this huge growth spurt in my writing in one day and just magically turn into an award-winning writer overnight, but huge growth spurts in writing never happen overnight so that thought is probably unrealistic. Growing as a writer happens over time and through many trial-and-error pieces of work. No good writer has started out at their best, but instead, they grow into it because they learn new things in the course of their writing career. Over the course of this semester, I have grown more as a writer than I did in the first three years of high school combined, so yes, I did have a growth spurt as a writer, but it didn’t happen all at once and I am not finished growing. This semester, I have had to write...
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...doing a lot of creative writing.” Mrs. Phelps introduced her class with at the start of my junior year. I had always been keen to free writing for the single reason that it was easy to fluff up and fabricate. As long as it was in MLA format and grammar was correct, I could not lose. I had discovered early on in my academic career that I was a decent writer; I could establish main points and a theme as well as apply proper grammar. It speaks for my writing that I was agitable to misusers of “there, their, and they’re” to say the least. The only criticism on writing prompts I would get were technical ones, like using apostrophes incorrectly or writing the number rather than spelling it. Yet, marked in red at the top of my first paper junior year was something I had not expected, nor seen before-- “Where is your voice?” My voice? I was not mute, so what kind of question was that? I thought about it all class period and looked for the flaw within the paper. All i had to work with was that obscure note and I thought about the question again and again-- I even began...
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...Throughout this year, I felt like i have grown more as a writer. In the beginning of this year, I did not really understand the meaning of writing. As I go through the year, I understand more and more of why we write. When I first came into this class, I only knew what Mr. Shambaugh and Mr. Riise had taught us last year about writing. I felt like I have grown dramatically with my writing. I know use stronger words when writing an essay that means something. As well as that, I know enjoy writing long pieces or even short essays. This semester taught me how to improve on being a writer, and how to open my mind to new things. While first proceeding through this class, I had no idea how I would feel writing essays every other day. I felt like I was going to be miserable and get behind fast. In the beginning, I knew I had to come up with a better attitude and put my mind into my work. When we first had an essay due, I was a little nervous because I did not know what you expected of us. Now, I write my papers the night before it is due usually and I do not hesitate to press submit. While in English 111/112, you have...
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...mouth. Everyone in my family has giving up on me because they said that there is nothing good that can come out of me. As I entered Montgomery College, I told myself that I will make something good out of myself. I have managed to complete ESL classes, which many people doubted. I feel that through my experience of this English course, I have gained the knowledge and confidence it takes to step out into the real world. My writing strength is the ability to use rhetorical strategies in a narrative essay to develop an academic prompt, but I still need to polish on how to demonstrate the facilities like improve my tone, how to persuade my reader, and how to organize...
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...was faced with the difficult of writing during his time at school, his English classes were very hard and confused. The others points I found on this essay is: * The author faced and thought that only the rich people could write and that being a writer as professional did not have a good future, but even that he had begun to think about being a writer. So in his third year at college things changed for him. * When his class assigned to Mr. Fleagle, he was waiting another sad and dull year because the Mr. Fleagle was recognized as a person with no inspiration, no glare, his way of dressing or even his physical characteristics made the students in the city do not have a good conception of Mr. Fleagle. * Another important point that the author cites in his essay is he was not disappointed for a long time, because he expected an antipathetic professor. Also he cites the teacher wanted his students to like Macbeth, but the teacher didn’t know how to influence the students’ whit that passion he had for Macbeth. The author makes a citation which one the teacher always used in the classroom and is very interesting “do not you see”, the author claims it as his teacher was placed in front of students in a tone of mild surprise ignorance of them. What I realized at the end of the essay is the author decides to break the rules and finally begins to write about what he feels and what he really like to write about. The author‘s proposal in my point of view is narrate a moment...
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...I face a lot of challenges when it comes to creating an acceptable paper. I have a negative outlook on my writing, I write a lot of cliche things, fragment sentences are my weakness, my vocabulary is poor, and I over think what is wanted from what I write. Struggling with this introduction, for instance, is one of my major weaknesses. A lot more work goes into it than there seems. I have to think “Did I capture the attention? Does my audience know where I’m going with this paper? Is it enough to make them curious to read more?” In the beginning of the semester, my introduction basically went straight into the paper like it was the first body paragraph. It was a confusing surprise. I’ve since worked on my introductions so they give more explanation toward the overall reason for the paper. Even if it’s not the best you’ve ever read, I’m more aware of why it’s not and that there are ways to strengthen it. I’d like to believe because of how self-aware I...
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...4 Unit 1 Journal 1: Personal Narrative 4 Unit 1 Journal 1: Personal Narrative Handout 6 Unit 1 Journal 2: Civic Narrative 9 Unit 1 Journal 2: Civic Narrative Handout 11 Unit 1 Assignment 1: What Would You Do? 12 Unit 2 Journal 1: Personal Narrative 13 Unit 2 Journal 1: Personal Narrative Handout 15 Unit 2 Journal 2: Civic Narrative 19 Unit 2 Journal 2: Civic Narrative Handout 20 Unit 2 Journal 3: Article Response 22 Unit 2 Assignment 1: What Would You Do? 23 Unit 2 Assignment 2: Declaration of Independence and Public Safety 25 Unit 3 Journal 1: Car Commercials 26 Unit 3 Journal 2: Personal Narrative 27 Unit 3 Journal 2: Personal Narrative Handout 28 Unit 3 Journal 3: Civic Narrative 31 Unit 3 Journal 3: Civic Narrative Handout 32 Unit 3 Journal 4: Taste vs. Judgment 34 Unit 3 Presentation 1: What Would You Do? 35 Unit 3 Assignment 1: Habits That Hinder Thinking 36 Unit 4 Journal 1: Invention Exercise 37 Unit 4 Journal 1: SWOT Analysis Template 38 Unit 4 Journal 2: Personal Narrative 39 Unit 4 Journal 2: Personal Narrative Handout 41 Unit 4 Journal 3: Civic Narrative 43 Unit 4 Journal 3: Civic Narrative Handout 44 Unit 4 Assignment 1: What Would You Do? 46 Unit 4 Assignment 2: Invention White Paper 47 Unit 5 Journal 1: Personal Narrative 48 Unit 5 Journal 1: Personal Narrative Handout 49 Unit 5 Journal 2: Civic Narrative 51 Unit 5 Journal 2: Civic Narrative Handout 53 Unit 5 Assignment 1: What Would You Do? 55 Unit...
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...introduce a personal visual media paper, or other media analysis paper, because it encourages students to think critically about their childhood experiences with TV, etc in a personal, creative way. The exercise may become an early paper draft, or simply stimulate their thinking about the programs and commercials they have watched, and how these media affected them. Description: Students will write creative narratives about a childhood TV experience, then trade papers with another classmate, who will assess the program, the narrator, and then complete the narrative with a commercial break description suited to the program and audience. You may want to have your own example written up to read to them before each step, just to get them thinking about what’s possible. Suggested Time: 20 minutes to a full class period Procedure: Ask the class what their favorite shows were as kids: cartoons, sitcoms, even documentaries. You may want to bring in a few stills or uTube clips to project (in a tech class), as a memory jogger (ex. The Cosby Show, Ren & Stimpy, etc). Once you’ve discussed a nice variety of TV programs, ask the class to freewrite for 5-10 minutes (however long you wish to tell them) in first-person P.O.V. about their experience watching a show like these as a kid. They should be specific and detailed, writing whatever comes to memory about what’s going on in the program and their thoughts/reactions/and situation as they watch. Ask them to consider tings like: What are the TV...
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