Reflecting on my Own Development as a Writer
Reflecting on my Own Development as a Writer
EN101: English Composition I, was my first college class. With mixed emotions, both excited and nervous, I knew it was important for me to do well in the course as it would set the tone for all of my upcoming classes. So, with great determination to gain new writing and reading comprehension skills (and a little apprehension), I signed up. It is no secret, even as far back as my high school English days, I never liked anything dealing with punctuation and grammar. My reading habits, over 15 years after graduation, are still fairly poor. One of the greatest accomplishments in life, however, are overcoming your fears and strengthening your weaknesses. This course, week in and week out, has helped me with both of those goals. After reading over my writing from throughout the semester and comparing it to the course tasks, it is clear that I have learned a lot. My style of writing has greatly improved and finally, after years of disdain, my views of English and writing have changed.
While I have achieved many goals throughout the weeks in this course, one main change that is immediately noticeable is my increased development in reading comprehension. After only completing the very first module, I had a better understand of what I read and how to properly read it! “Annotating [made] me more aware of what I [was] reading. It cause[d] my thoughts to question the author and to engage their words. It also cause[d] me to go back over the passage to better understand what I read.” The idea of annotating and pinpointing the subject and thesis and meaning of a passage seems so basic; none-the-less, I had never done it prior to the course and afterwards, it completely opened up a new world of understanding. I have since used the process of annotating in most of my writing and revision tasks. I have been better able to analyze my topics and evaluate my own writing. I have been able to focus more on locating/creating a
EN101: English Composition I, was my first college class. With mixed emotions, both excited and nervous, I knew it was important for me to do well in the course as it would set the tone for all of my upcoming classes. So, with great determination to gain new writing and reading comprehension skills (and a little apprehension), I signed up. It is no secret, even as far back as my high school English days, I never liked anything dealing with punctuation and grammar. My reading habits, over 15 years after graduation, are still fairly poor. One of the greatest accomplishments in life, however, are overcoming your fears and strengthening your weaknesses. This course, week in and week out, has helped me with both of those goals. After reading over my writing from throughout the semester and comparing it to the course tasks, it is clear that I have learned a lot. My style of writing has greatly improved and finally, after years of disdain, my views of English and writing have changed.
While I have achieved many goals throughout the weeks in this course, one main change that is immediately noticeable is my increased development in reading comprehension. After only completing the very first module, I had a better understand of what I read and how to properly read it! “Annotating [made] me more aware of what I [was] reading. It cause[d] my thoughts to question the author and to engage their words. It also cause[d] me to go back over the passage to better understand what I read.” The idea of annotating and pinpointing the subject and thesis and meaning of a passage seems so basic; none-the-less, I had never done it prior to the course and afterwards, it completely opened up a new world of understanding. I have since used the process of annotating in most of my writing and revision tasks. I have been better able to analyze my topics and evaluate my own writing. I have been able to focus more on locating/creating a