Marie-Jose Ottou
EN 102 My Strengths and Weaknesses I am a science major and I have always minimized English Language courses because I thought I was already very good at writing. I did not think I would ever really need to use what I would acquire from such a course. When I came to Montgomery College and I was going to take the course English 101, my expectations were that I would have no difficulty scoring good grades in the course and I would learn nothing really helpful from it. This is because in high school, I put very little effort into my English class, but I had impressive scores in writing. I began to understand that I am not as good as I thought I was at writing when I started taking english courses in college. During my previous English course, English 102, I was able to improve certain aspects of my writing which I am glad for. For instance I am confident that my essay structures are well built. But some things in writing remained a challenge for me. I am glad that I am taking an English course that would permit me to work on things I thought I was already good at like awareness in writing essays and proper use of grammar and punctuation One of my weaknesses that I was quick to discover was that my use of grammar and punctuation was not as good as I thought it was. In high school, I had never faced any problem in those fields, but after a single assignment on capitalization in college, my confidence was shaken when I got a “C” grade on it. It was hard for
I hate reading and writing I never show interesting and I thought it was boring and just slept the whole period. But taking English 096 in my first semester at Harold Washington has impacted my writing skills in a positive way. This class helped me to learn more the skills I needed to become a better writer I college and for my future. Professor Thomas helped me with my writing and showed me that I do not have to be a perfect writer to get my point across. Like every writer we have are weaknesses and are strongest strategies. One of my weak is brainstorming ideas for my topic or how to compare two stories. But the class thought me how to comprehend the stories and try to make things they have in common. English 096 have also helped me to communicate more with my peers. My peers will help me revise my writing and make common so I can fix them and just make my final draft. I changed how I write because when the semester I was as good as a writer because I thought it was boring. But time passed I started to feel interesting and with the help of the professor I started to write better. The professor was determined to make us better writer. He would do every morning warm up and it seems small but it had an impact of how I write. Because I learned little things I never heard about.
Analyzing my strengths and weaknesses as a writer is extremely important. Despite the fact that I understand the structure of a good argument, I still miss obvious errors in my papers because I lack the skills necessary to properly proofread my own work. In the future, I plan on spending a large portion of my time
I immensely struggled when writing. Taking my scrambled thoughts and uncoordinated analysis and converting it into clean and understandable words on a page was arduous. I could not express my thoughts in proper academic format. I understood the importance of writing to every subject. It was essential that I learn to condense my ideas and feeling into coherent written word. After much debate, I decided that the best way to improve my writing skills was to take an advanced English course.
Over the course of time, I have learned that learning is essential if you want to be successful. Whether it is about life skills or school, learning is a habit that everyone uses in a way to become successful. One of my main goals is to obtain the most out of college so that I can input what I learn in school in the outside world. Meaning that I want to learn as much as I possibly can in any course, especially in this course. I expected this course to be a review of my English class during my senior year of high school, but I extended on what I had previously learned about English. As this semester of ENG 111 ends, I can say that I have improved skills that involve grammar, structuring a paragraph with supporting details, and opening my
I decided to take AP Language and Composition due to the requirements of the University of Iowa. For my intended major, I need two rhetoric classes and one literature class. Last year I completed the literature class which improved my reading ability tremendously. After completing ENG 105, I have improved in multiple areas, but I am most proud of my improvement on the writing volume and stamina as I now have the ability to write college level essays. When examining all of the competencies, I have not mastered any one of them, but have improved in multiple categories throughout the semester.
As I entered into English 101, I had the expectation of writing many unimaginative papers, while stressing if I was going to be able to complete my college and high school tasks. On top of all that, I was afraid of having a monotonous, boring professor. I soon realized that these assumptions were all invalid. I managed my tasks by completing everything in a timely manner and needed all the advice I could get from an outstanding English professor. When I enter English 102 in the fall, I have the expectation of being in a more language based composition class. My goals for English 102 are to continue to improve my writing skills, complete my work on time, and obtain information that I can use as I proceed in college. After I accomplish English 102, I hope to be able to be an improved writer and be able to convey ideas more
For the short amount of time I have attended English 1101 through Sinclair I have learned that college courses are not like high school. English 1101 is even a sugar coated version of a real college class because I do not leave my high school campus. This class puts a lot more responsibility on the students compared to high school. I noticed that my usual procrastination did not make the cut. I have perceived that my grammar, vocabulary, and editing skills have
This course offers numerous opportunities to improve our writing. In this class, I not only enhanced the skills I already had, but also learned new writing concepts. Before I took this class, I knew that my writing is poor, and I have always wanted to improve it; however, I did not know how and what aspects of writing to improve. So, I came into this class with the ambition to improve my writing, and I have accomplished my goal although there is still room for improvement. At this point of this course, I have learned the elements that successful writing is composed of, and I am now able to categorize the various techniques that can work together to define strong
During this semester, the realization of my past was that I have often skimmed through parts of the writing process to get the job done. Not being an avid reader often hindered my writing abilities. This class most definitely made me realize that the entire writing process is important and having peer reviews also helped significantly and certainly made a difference in the result of my work. Taking the time to read, brainstorm my thoughts, write an outline, rough draft after rough draft, reading constructive criticism of others helped in the revisions of my papers’ reaching the best possible outcome. When selecting English 102, I knew I would be challenged, but to what extent I was unsure. If like past English courses that were taken learning to write essays would be the goal. Once realizing that my work would be shared with others, providing informed information
I have never been an excellent student and perennially struggled with English, Math, and Science growing up. These subjects would cast a pall over my day and school work. Anxiety would well up inside of me which often resulted with me passed out across my desk sleeping through parts of class. When I would return home at day’s end, I rarely completed my homework. When I did try to complete homework, it often ended in tears of frustration or the hurling of a book across the room. Taking this class has helped to quell a portion of that anxiety and frustration. It was a grueling class, seemingly impossible at times, but taking this class has given me the confidence to know that not only can I finish the class if I work hard but can also excel! Writing is something that I will exercise throughout my college curriculum and my life. It will help to convey my ideas to the instructor, peers, bosses, and co-workers. In my college curriculum, it will also show my instructors that I’m learning the information provided and how to apply that knowledge appropriately. It will allow me to complete assignments, discussions, and reports, and I will also apply writing in basic communication when necessary.
In high school I took an honors English course and the AP English and composition course, which were both run by teachers who were very able to teach me, as a student, very in depth ways of critically analyzing prompts and texts in order to write about them effectively and in an academic manner. They were very hard on students and although I resented them often during my time in their classes, I came out of each class very prepared for my first year of college, and to my surprise I was significantly more prepared than a lot of my peers. As I begin this course as a second semester sophomore, I have been able to recognize in my other courses that my writing and critical analysis needs to improve in order for me to continue to be successful
The book How to Not Write Bad: The Most Common Writing Problems and the Best Ways to Avoid Them, by Ben Yagoda, focuses on teaching readers how to eliminate errors in their writing. To engage the readers, the author uses examples from his own students’ writing. By showing other students’ mistakes, Yagoda creates a mood of reassurance for the readers and tells his audience that everyone can make grammatical errors. This allows him to easily touch on a range of areas with an attentive audience. The topics are diverse with interesting topic titles, which help spark the reader’s interest. For example, Yagoda titles the section “,” rather than spelling “comma” in Punctuation (40). Using the punctuation symbol instead of the name is unusual and therefore
As a freshman, my weakest spot in 9th grade English was easily grammar. I would get lots of points marked down on my essays for it as well as bad grades on grammar quizzes. I was also making grammatical mistakes on my Twelve Angry Men essay that should’ve been easy to notice, such as not italicizing the title of the book, and not capitalizing the color Orange, and I also made a lot of mistakes on my next essay, Irony. Since then the grammatical errors I’ve been making on papers have been much smaller ones that were a lot harder to notice. I no longer make sloppy mistakes on my essays that are easily noticed.
When I entered more regular classes in my junior year of high school, particularly my expository writing class, I did not do well. I was accustomed to doing the bare minimum, putting very little effort in, as that was what was required to pass my special education classes. However, it soon became clear that my expository class would be challenging because my teacher expected great things from her students. Once I realized this, I threw myself into the work. I would go to class after school to ask questions about the content that was covered, as well as ask my parents for feedback on my papers. I passed the class with a C, rather than my usual A, but my writing skills increased exponentially. The C grade was obviously not what I had hoped for, but it meant more to me than my A’s. There were many times that I struggled with self-doubt, wondering if I had made a mistake in my request to
In going from a basic language arts class to a college language arts class it’s a whole new perspective. In deciding to take this course I’ve had many positive as well as negative things I have noticed in my writing. The very first essay we had I scored fairly average for it being the first essay of the class. It had lacked many elements such as essay content, word choice, as well as grammar and mechanics. An example from that essay would be ”Which holds the reader at