Brief Assignment 1: Pre-Semester Diagnostic - Adame Zriouli

Truth be told, it’s been a few years since the last time I walked into a writing extensive course like English 1302. The last time that I sat in front of a computer, and slaved away for hours trying to create the perfect paper was in 2011, during my first semester at Texas Tech. It was English 101, and people had that it’s a class that I should not take lightly, but of course I thought I knew better. Let’s just say that I figured out, I was not the greatest writer in the world after all, but high school definitely made me think I was. Before I entered into my first semester of college level English, it was not unordinary for me to write a paper that received applause from teachers all the way through senior year. I wrote essays on books, such as the “The Great Gatsby” to critically breaking apart poems. One assignment that I remember vividly was my critical summary over Robert Frost’s Poem, “The Road Less Traveled”. Alas, those easy days are gone. Most of my time now is spent typing up emails to staff and teachers. Since I have been enrolled at Texas Tech, I have worked in Texas Tech’s School of Law in the Administrative Office. Much my work is behind a screen typing up emails. It has taught me a lot, so I feel as though I’ve become pretty proficient when it comes to writing up formal messages or relaying information in a professional way. I believe that I have a decent amount of experience when it comes to my writing abilities, and hopefully that will continue to grow throughout my time in this class.
When I look at myself as a writer, I see that I have my own strengths can also be weaknesses. One of my strengths I feel that I have as a writer is that I am very critical of my work. I review multiple copies of my writing. This tends to help when I am critiquing the overall voice and direction of my paper. A weakness of mine that is worth when it comes to my writing is the fact that I do not always understand or accept what others say about my writing. What I mean by that is, I’ve had graders comment on my assignments to help correct potential flaws in my writing. A lot of those times, I tend to not fully agree with, and comprehend the errors that they documented. This makes it really hard for me as a writer to keep improving when I just simply don’t want to hear their evaluations. I critique my own material very hard, but have trouble allowing others to do the same. My goal for this class is to better my understanding of my flaws in my writing. I also hope to get over this weird problem I have with people critiquing my work.
After reading over the letter Shelby wrote to her friend Tatyana, I took notice to a lot. Clearly her purpose was to describe to Tatyana, her first time going to a Tech football game. The audience was someone close to her shown by the very informal speech used throughout the letter. The use of “lol” and “haha” made the letter feel more like it was a note passed around high school hallways. Exclamation points were thrown all over the place, clearly from excitement. The use of slang showed that someone who grew up in the texting era wrote this letter. This is how she communicated effectively with her audience.