My Literacy Learning Experience Essay
Experience outside of the classroom can contribute to the advancement of literacy learning. The same can also be said that literacy is experienced only inside the classroom. I have had the luxury of experiencing both. The literacy I have gained in past courses and work experience is characterized by attending class, completing tasks in the work place, peer and instructor critique, personal habits, and literacy acculturation.
Although I have taken an English 101 course, I can’t recall if the learning outcomes were the same; but surely they had to be similar. More than ten years has passed since the time of taking that first college English class so my memories of this experience might be a little cloudy. Incidentally, my most recent writing has been maneuvering kind of in the dark because of this long gap in between schooling.
To begin with, in English 101, I can remember that after each essay, peer reviews were also administered. After one of the peer reviews, a classmate told me I had done a good job and didn’t feel the need for any changes to be made. I’m not sure if she was just being nice about it but it really made me feel confident (at that time) about my writing …show more content…
skills. In hindsight, perhaps if those peers had provided better constructive feedback to me, it might have encouraged a stronger effort and pathway to literacy learning and achieving the goals as described in “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing”.
This past fall semester, I received a lot of instructor feedback from the classes I took regarding essays and papers. Some were positive and some indicated that I needed to add more information and/or be more thorough. However, as the semester progressed and with each successive essay, I gave my best to any work out any advice I was given and it seemed that the feedback had gotten more positive towards the end of the semester.
At any rate, with all that I’ve learned starting from middle school and high school, I don’t feel as though I’m writing at the level that I should be. Taking from the class discussions, one of our classmates wrote that they felt their writing was still at the high school level. I share that same view about my own writing skills.
Furthermore, one embarrassing thing to admit to and is also a huge hindrance to literacy learning is a simple personal habit such is procrastination.
Better time management could also be a part of that deal. I always wondered if it’s because I work well under pressure. This became a realization of mine when I entered and became part of the workforce in my early adulthood. Many of my past jobs required high volume jobs or orders to be completed by a deadline and the results were always positive when I started them when it got closer to the deadline. Perhaps that attitude or work ethic transferred to my school work. Even so, my jobs really did not require much writing besides the occasional email to coworkers so I did not have a lot of sponsorship to fully advance my literacy learning in this
field.
By the same token, being the first generation in the United States and not having anyone close who spoke fluently has affected my literacy learning in a lot of ways. As a result of not really knowing someone who knew the mechanics of good English, and having parents who didn’t speak it, made it very difficult to master it, let alone writing it. I’ve had to try and overcome this on my own. Thankfully, I have a good ear so I learn things quickly in this manner. That’s not to say that everything I learn stays with me so I can be still off with what I say and write sometimes.
To conclude, even though I have discussed a lot of what has hindered literacy learning, I can say that I’m average in these skills. I’m also very grateful for the skills that I believe I already have. I have taken what I learned from English 101 and applied it to my writing the best I can. The foundation is there but has lost some of its forte and I hope to further my knowledge and refine some other skills after this class, such as, expanding my vocabulary, being more thorough, and organization and cohesion. All in all, I have been decently trained and will work hard to persevere in literacy learning.
Although I have taken an English 101 course, I can’t recall if the learning outcomes were the same; but surely they had to be similar. More than ten years has passed since the time of taking that first college English class so my memories of this experience might be a little cloudy. Incidentally, my most recent writing has been maneuvering kind of in the dark because of this long gap in between schooling.
To begin with, in English 101, I can remember that after each essay, peer reviews were also administered. After one of the peer reviews, a classmate told me I had done a good job and didn’t feel the need for any changes to be made. I’m not sure if she was just being nice about it but it really made me feel confident (at that time) about my writing …show more content…
skills. In hindsight, perhaps if those peers had provided better constructive feedback to me, it might have encouraged a stronger effort and pathway to literacy learning and achieving the goals as described in “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing”.
This past fall semester, I received a lot of instructor feedback from the classes I took regarding essays and papers. Some were positive and some indicated that I needed to add more information and/or be more thorough. However, as the semester progressed and with each successive essay, I gave my best to any work out any advice I was given and it seemed that the feedback had gotten more positive towards the end of the semester.
At any rate, with all that I’ve learned starting from middle school and high school, I don’t feel as though I’m writing at the level that I should be. Taking from the class discussions, one of our classmates wrote that they felt their writing was still at the high school level. I share that same view about my own writing skills.
Furthermore, one embarrassing thing to admit to and is also a huge hindrance to literacy learning is a simple personal habit such is procrastination.
Better time management could also be a part of that deal. I always wondered if it’s because I work well under pressure. This became a realization of mine when I entered and became part of the workforce in my early adulthood. Many of my past jobs required high volume jobs or orders to be completed by a deadline and the results were always positive when I started them when it got closer to the deadline. Perhaps that attitude or work ethic transferred to my school work. Even so, my jobs really did not require much writing besides the occasional email to coworkers so I did not have a lot of sponsorship to fully advance my literacy learning in this
field.
By the same token, being the first generation in the United States and not having anyone close who spoke fluently has affected my literacy learning in a lot of ways. As a result of not really knowing someone who knew the mechanics of good English, and having parents who didn’t speak it, made it very difficult to master it, let alone writing it. I’ve had to try and overcome this on my own. Thankfully, I have a good ear so I learn things quickly in this manner. That’s not to say that everything I learn stays with me so I can be still off with what I say and write sometimes.
To conclude, even though I have discussed a lot of what has hindered literacy learning, I can say that I’m average in these skills. I’m also very grateful for the skills that I believe I already have. I have taken what I learned from English 101 and applied it to my writing the best I can. The foundation is there but has lost some of its forte and I hope to further my knowledge and refine some other skills after this class, such as, expanding my vocabulary, being more thorough, and organization and cohesion. All in all, I have been decently trained and will work hard to persevere in literacy learning.