My English 101 Experience

Education. Why is it such an easy word to understand but such a tedious task to accomplish? We come from a society that hands out education easily, however that education comes with a price. Jean Anyon explains this process through her research in From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work. Anyon dissects the socio-economic class that determines the types of instruction students receive. Through her research one can compare her findings to Mike Rose’s narrative, I Just Wanna Be Average, to be true and insightful. Rose speaks of his high school life as an underachiever as well as his ability to break free from the mold that he was once placed in. Comprehending both Anyon and Rose, I, myself, have come face to face with the

Throughout the English 101 course, I believe I have thoroughly improved in my writing, peer editing, and analyzing readings, along with annotating my thoughts, misunderstandings, and difficulties. I believe I have especially improved on my thesis statements, providing the basis for my essays. My thesis statements have went from being plain and uninteresting to being more detailed, clear, and concise. This enabled me to produced better written essays that are rich in detail, rhetorical statements, evidence, and experiences. I feel as if I came into this course not exactly sure how to write a college paper. I was always more focused on the length of my essays rather than the structure, vocabulary, and ideas my papers were exhibiting. My writing now flows better and presents my ideas in a clear, organized fashion.

When I started my first semester of college, I was very worried about writing essays and research papers. I felt like my writing skills lacked greatly compared to other students. I knew a few things of which I could improve on right off the bat, such as my vocabulary skills and organizational skills. To say the least I was very nervous about how my writing composition course would be like and did not think it would go very well for me. However, I learned so many techniques that have helped my writing skills grow. It all started with learning how to stay organized, planning what to write in your essay in outline form and sticking to it really helped when writing essays. These techniques helped me become more confident in my essays and allowed writing essays to become a lot easier. The few aspects in which I am strong in while writing essays is my ability to stay organized, focused and be very clear about what I am writing. Nonetheless, there is always room for improvement; a few things that I can think of being grammar and punctuation due to no revising, embedding quotes smoothly, and citing sources correctly.

Throughout the course English 101, I believe my writing skills have improved through understanding concepts such as rhetorical situation, purpose, audience, ethos, pathos, logos, and rhetorical analysis. Looking back at the semester, I reflect on my strengths and weaknesses. My strengths include my note taking skills and being attentive during class. Doing this, I was later able to use these notes to look back at while writing, which I found very useful. For example, for the essay Comparative Rhetorical Analysis, I took note of almost every piece of information Dr. Braun gave us, writing in the margins of the articles and highlighting important phrases. Because of this, writing came very easily to me not only for that essay but also others,

Applying the writing skills learned in English 101, which includes determining audience and purpose, organization, and grammar and mechanic usage, is also a major goal for students in their second semester of freshman English. The ability for a writer to determine their audience and purpose is essential for all writing. In my proposal essay advocating a plan to stop texting and driving I said “As the number of collisions from cell phone related distractions rises, something must be done to significantly reduce the regularity of this event. This problem affects all age groups, sexes, and ethnicities and it is in our hands as drivers to create safer, more responsible roadways.” In these two sentences, I stated the purpose of my argument which

      Additionally, another weakness that I had when coming into English 101 was that I was a selfish writer. Like Trimble said, “His natural tendency as a writer is to think primarily of himself- hence to write primarily for himself.” (Trimble, 4) I was a writer who only cared about impressing one type of audience my professor and not writing to prove a point or expand my knowledge to several other audiences. However, after writing several unsatisfying essays I had come to realize that my style of writing was too narrow and boring. In this realization of writing I discovered that what matters the most is pleasing your audience (many not one), and

Many students question themselves of what they might learn from taking an English class. If they will understand the material or if what they learn in class will be used later in their lives. Gaining something out of a class is what matters the most or why else would a student take that class in the first place. Through my observations and experiences if someone were to ask me what I learned in English 101, I would say that I have improved as a student overall. Taking English 101 has helped me to become a more specialized writer, a more studious student, and a person who is more minded person.

I used to consider writing as tumble words from your mind, write, read it through, fix minor mistakes, and done. However, you rarely get successful. The truth is many students, including myself, struggle with starting to write a word, or getting stuck in the middle without knowing the main point of the writing. After completing English 101, I can explain the writing process, evaluate the strengths of my essay, and identify my weaknesses.

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

Proficient writing is an essential skill in all aspects of academic and professional achievement. English 101, Introduction to Composition and Rhetoric, provided the framework to good writing, teaching me composition and rhetoric fundamentals, polishing up my grammar and style, and expressing a clear message. English 102, Composition, Rhetoric, and Research, continued to build on the skills I learned in English 101, focusing on the subject matter research process and employing various rhetorical and literary devices to better express a clear message to the reader. The course also improved my critical thinking capacity, allowing me to culturally evaluate my target audience, present logically flowing arguments using appropriate language and structure, and critically reviewing my writing projects for content and expression. Every writer inherently knows there’s always room to improve and I hold fast to this mindset in all academic, professional, and personal writing projects. English 102 has both challenged and inspired me to grow into a much better writer than before I began the class, providing the necessary skills to be not just a good writer, but a great writer.

English 101 has helped shape my writing in so many ways. I have grown and became more confident in the skills I portray. In-class workshops helped me to receive feedback and new ideas from my peers. My view of English has changed drastically for the best. Along with my writing skills my reading and critical thinking skills have also improved. I learned the importance of using ethos, pathos, and logos. Putting text in dialog has been a struggle for me in the past but I now have a better grasp on it after taking English 101. I’m happy I had to take English 101 because it has helped prepare for not only English 102 but my other classes as well.

To begin with, this English 101 course differed from the previous English courses I have taken by being less hostile, more informative, and all around more helpful. This course was much more relaxed, in the way that, students were not constantly looking over their shoulder terrified that the teacher might come up behind them and belittle everything they had written and throw it out. Dr. Bosse took the time to go over each type of writing we were about to encounter, giving us examples and explaining the examples to make sure each of us knew exactly what was expected and how we could accomplish it. If we had problems, there was no doubt, we could go to him for help and advice, whether it be in class or not. Dr. Bosse made sure that each of us

Growth, I believe, is inevitable when one is compelled to learn and apply that knowledge which has been presented to them. This semester has proved to be a time of development, change, and substantial growth. During my time in English 101 I have had the chance to really explore new genres of writing such as memoirs, rhetorical analyses, and persuasive essays. In this class I have been able to build upon old writing skills and cultivate new ones; and I have also come to recognize what I like and dislike writing about through the completion of the assignments we were charged with. Through this semester in English 101 I feel as though I have had the opportunity to enhance my ability to apply the rules of rhetoric to my work, convey my thoughts and ideas with greater clarity, and recognize the places where I can improve my work through the revising process.

During the semester, I learned to focus on my strengths and work on my weaknesses. I could use my organization, paragraph structure, and transition skills to keep high quality writing. This will be helpful to assure an above average grade when I take English 102 during the summer. On the other hand, although students often try to avoid their weaknesses, I see them as useful. Knowing my weaknesses gives me the opportunity to work on them until they become strengths. For example, as I mentioned before, organization is presently my biggest strength. However, at the beginning of the course, it wasn’t. I had to practice and work on it until it became natural and

My writing skills which I have worked on over the few months I have been in English 102 have changed quite a bit in my opinion. There are many things which I have improved upon that were amongst my weaker writing skills when the year began. On the opposite side of that point, there are also many things which I still need to improve upon if I want to truly elevate my writing to a level that I will be confident in. Finally, I have gained new skills outside of writing from this class, particularly the activities which we did in class at various points throughout the year. These things all cumulate together to give me an appreciation of English courses which I did not previously have.