English 2 Reflection

English Comp 1 was an eye opening experience. The course was emotionally and physically draining, but I strongly believe it prepared me for Comp 2. Learning and improving are a few of the rewards I received through hard work and dedication during the course. Throughout English comp 1, I discovered my biggest weakness. I improved some of my various difficulties, and I achieved a rewarding high point.

As the Fall 2017 term comes to end, I look back on what I have accomplished in this class. English 102 – Composition II was one of the most challenging and toughest class I have taken at UW-Stout, but feel as though it has helped me to improve my writing skills. Even before the semester started the feeling of anxiety had taken over, as writing has never been my strongest skill, but stayed positive and confident I would be successful. Much to my surprise, my instructor, Michael Critchfield quickly addressed that this class would not be easy and amazingly changed my views of writing throughout the entire semester.

Before I enrolled in English 101 my ability to write specific types of papers (argumentative, rhetoric, narrative, etc) were mediocre at best. However, from reading The Norton Field Guide to Writing and They Say, I Say I gained a deeper understanding on how to better argue a point or write a narrative with a clear theme. Moreover, from my time of being in English 101 I have improved tremendously in the given areas: Rhetoric, Technology, Research, and Collaboration.

What have I learned in English 102? When I began this class, I had not taken a formal English class in over thirty years. I understood sentence structure and essay writing to a point. To elaborate my understanding was based on story telling rather than research and factual commentary. Of course, rhetorical review and research was foreign to me. I had a loose understanding but had never practiced or been in a position to apply these skills. Or at least that is what I thought. Since beginning this course, I have found it both challenging and enlightening. I feel that my skills have developed over the last few weeks and a greater understanding of what it takes to identify and understand complicated subjects has progressed. Not just that I can read difficult scholarly text, but that I can focus on what they are trying to say, their argument, and then develop my own counter argument in support of or against the authors statements. It is more than just saying I concur or I do not agree with you. It is stating how my point of view differs and supporting my statements logically and directly with facts, not just conjecture. Within the following paragraphs I will discuss, in more detail, the specific areas where I feel I have matured and how I intend to apply this new-found knowledge to my future writing as well as reading materials to assess their value.

Coming into this University, I knew that my writing skills were not poor, however I needed more guidance on how to be a more successful writer. My last english class in high school was advanced writing class, so I thought that my skills acquired through that class would help me a lot through this class. I will say I credit my background knowledge for some of my success on my papers, but the English 101 course itself has helped me strengthen my skills. I picked the specific papers in my portfolio because they represent my writing style. I always wrote by what the book said, like a machine. My english teacher this year told me I needed to work on being comfortable with not always following the book. After I learned to do that, I had some trouble

English 111 was an educational journey for me. Throughout the course, I was able to develop my own writing style as well as learn how to perfect my writing skills. At the start, I was not fully prepared to be a good writer. I did not know who the writer was inside of me. I could not find her and did not even know where to look. I realized that my goal was not just to get good grades, but be able to understand and absorb the material. The lessons I would learn in English 111 would be of great importance. Being a good writer is necessary in order for me to succeed in any of the adventures that tomorrow might hold. For this reason, my expedition through English 111 made me the writer I am today and there are several reasons how.

During the fall semester of 2015, I was enrolled in an English 101 Composition class. At first, I did not think much of the course. I have never had a passion for English classes. I thought it would be a fairly boring class that I would end up loathing. However, I no longer feel the same way toward the course. I learned to like that class. The professor was brilliant. Professor Grefski taught everything with such as ease. It almost became comforting to hear her explain the assignments or lessons. I felt as though I could understand the class better with her teaching. I really learned a lot in the course. The badges themselves were a great help to my college career. I thought I knew how to do all those things before the class, but I now realize

As the semester comes to an end this assignment gives me a great opportunity to look back on my experiences in English 111. Through my experience in English 111 recognizing several ideas that have greatly impacted me, my point of view on learning, and my actual learning. My experience in college has been beneficial because my professor approached teaching with a more aware effort and taught me how to approach learning and my role as a learner in a way. It is tough to put into words how much I have grown as a writer.

In English 101, I mastered getting to the point of getting to my essays with less disappointment with force; I learned the significant use of scratch paper. For example, I wasn’t always use to writing my essays on scratch paper; however, keeping in mind that the scratch paper was a nondurable tool as I finished my paper, because I knew they would be thrown away. Also, the professor required us to submit our scratch paper along with our essays. With this procedure, I was forced to rewrite my essays. He felt that the scratch paper would be a help to us as we continually to learn how to effectively write our essays.

What I learned from this semester in English 101-102 class was to have an open mind and be creative. My papers had to have mean something to me and had to move like the rivers of Babylon. My papers had to keep the reader entertain and have resources that backed up my information. We had to use instruction that made our papers easier to understand. English 101-102 help me become a better academic writer because I learn how to make inquiries, seeking and valuing complexity, seeing writing as a conversation, and understanding writing as a process.

My goals this semester for the course it to work harder than I did last semester to get a better grade to pass the course. Also, I would like to improve my writing skills and become a better writer my instructor can help me achieve my goals by doing the best he can to explain the assignments and class readings to make it easier to understand.

In my experience, even advanced placement courses, which aim to replicate college level writing courses, do not prepare students with the skills necessary to become strong writers. The most pronounced difference between high school level writing and college level writing is quality. This varying quality manifests itself in multiple different ways in a student’s writing. For example, in high school, students are taught esoteric vocabulary words every week in the hopes that memorizing these words will produced more refined, academic writing. Often, students misuse these words in their writing. They do not understand the context in which the word is to be used and consequently, makes the high school student sound pretentious. The aim in college writing, however, is not to use complex vocabulary to sound more intellectual. College writing focuses on clearly and effectively communicating a point. This excludes and superfluous content, such as SAT vocabulary. This makes for comprehensible writing that can be understood by a wider

High school was a major transition when it came to my literary skills. I took the most challenging english courses throughout each year of my high school career. During my sophomore year a new program was introduced, AP Capstone Academy. The introduction of this program allowed our high school to finally be recognized as a magnet school in our county. There were two classes that must be taken to continue enrollment in this program, they were AP Seminar and AP Research. Though I found it a drag to add on a writing class on top of my english class I was not looking forward to it my sophomore year, but little did I know how much it would help prepare me for academic writing in the future. During my junior year I took AP Seminar. This class involved a lot of reading and learning how to breakdown

This first semester at the University of Akron has flown by. I learned many new writing concepts that helped me become a better writer. English composition was a required class that I had to take in order to get my degree. Although this class was required I still wanted to take this class to become more knowledgeable about writing. Coming into English Composition I was worried about all of the papers and the workload that I would have to complete. I knew that I was going to have to write a lot more than I previously had in highschool, but I was unsure of just how much. The works that I decided to include in my portfolio comprise of my Literacy Narrative, Image Analysis Paper, and essay titled Mayas Hardships based on Maya’s experiences in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I selected these works because I felt that they are the ones that require the most improvement to them. The papers i've chosen show how far I’ve came In English Composition.

Throughout the 2016-2017 school year I learned many useful writing concepts in Honors English. These items consist of poems, argumentative essays, dystopian short stories and last but not least informational essays. While completing these assignments I learned a few specific items that stood out to me which is why I am choosing to talk about them. These items are “Read a range of poetry, looking for personal connections”, “Set goals for reading stamina and fluency,” and “Engage in discussion with other readers.” I feel that these three points are three of many points that are going to stick with me in my long future. Not to mention they are very important in moving to the next level of the english language, which is why I choose to talk about these learning objectives.