Growth as a Writer - End of Semester One

           This semester in College Comp has really affected my writing. After cranking out four essays and a language presentation, along with five critical analyses, a reader/writer profile, various journal entries, a cultural event review, and other miscellaneous free writing, I have learned a lot about my writing and myself.

            After reviewing my Reader/ Writer Profile from August, I realized that my strength is most certainly NOT being able to write a presentable paper in a pinch. I need revision time! The one paper I had to write in a pinch (the culture essay), I got a C on. I don’t know what I was thinking. I now think my biggest strength is getting down to the bottom of things in research; I will dig and dig and dig until I find what the truth is. My weakness is exactly what I said was my strength: speedwriting.

            I think my writing has best improved by making my writing more interesting to read, I think my persuasive essay is much more interesting than my personal narrative from the beginning of the semester. However, this might be because I think just really find sex education interesting, but I have really made an effort to make my writing more interesting for the reader, and not just for me. I feel like the biggest mistake I find myself repeating is trying to write last minute, often either because I’m busy or don’t take advantage of time I have earlier in the assignment.

            I use most steps of the writing process, especially various drafts, sometimes up to three separate documents basically saying the same thing but with different wording. I do need to spend more time on revision, and let go of the fact that not all of my first drafts are perfect, because most of them are really, really bad and need serious overhauling before they get turned in.       

            Showing versus telling is continuing to be difficult for me, but I think I did it best in the personal narrative in my descriptions of Venice and the Right-Angled Woman. I tried to put the reader on the islands, actually looking at this woman, instead of just having a sketchy mental image from my not-so-great telling. I think I didn’t do this very well in my culture essay, and that probably contributes to why I didn’t get a fabulous grade: I basically just described my views on death and burial practices. I didn’t really know how to put the reader into a position of being dead, but I think if I was given the opportunity to re-do this, I would definitely give it a better shot.

1.     I think my very best piece of writing was my personal narrative, and not just because I got a 94% (of which I am very proud, thank you Mrs. Brownlee), but because I had a lot of emotion going into it. I felt sorrow for the woman and her physical predicament, guilt for not helping her, and a decent amount of confusion. How could this poor woman be almost immobile and begging for coins in one of the most beautiful places on earth? I went about writing this piece to looking at the pictures my mom and I took while there, to trigger some memories of the actual city itself. The best paragraph is where I describe the poor and use her as the main example and focal point of the essay, and the worst paragraph is probably the super short conclusion. I needed to find a way to wrap up my feelings about the woman.

2.     The most difficult piece was probably the persuasive, because I had such a hard time finding information on sex education in LPS, which I needed to able to persuade the district to change their policy to include a more comprehensive approach. I couldn’t persuade them to change it if I didn’t know what they already did. While I eventually found enough information to write my dang paper, I had very little time left before it was due. Whoops.

3.     I would do some serious overhauling of the culture essay. It wasn’t put together well, needed more information, and the intro (“death is like a casserole”) was weird and strange. At the time, I thought it would grab the reader, but now I think it would just make them go: “What the heck. NOT reading this.”

While I’ve put a lot of time into this class and have missed countless hours of watching television and relaxing, I am very proud of all I’ve accomplished this semester, and I’m really glad I decided to take the class. I think I would have perished of boredom in anything else. I’ve really learned about myself as well. I learned I couldn’t crank quality things out at the last minute (which is what I’m still trying to do now, writing this in 3^rd hour before it’s due. Not my fault though, I had to work all weekend. (Okay, it’s totally my fault. Should have worked on it Friday.)) I’ve also learned I work best when I don’t have distractions such as everything on my computer…. I need to turn off the wifi when I work, or else I’ll never get anything done on time!

Reader Writer Profile

The pursuit of knowledge is one of the strongest desires in life, and reading is one of the best ways to gain it. Writing is a way to convey this knowledge to others, and satisfy their need to learn. Childhood is the time period in life where learning is constant and the ability to read and write is crucial to proper development. These two principles were important in my childhood and have developed into my current reading and writing abilities through my life experiences.

                As a child, I read a lot. Seriously, a lot. I read all sorts of books of all shapes, sizes, and subjects. My favorite book was about dinosaurs; it was the size of a textbook and had several hundred types of prehistoric reptiles in it. I got it as a gift when I was five; it was quite the book to carry around when I was so little. My first memory of reading was in this book, I remember stumbling over the long words, like Tyrannosaurus. I wanted my mom to read it to me, but she told me I had to do it to learn about the dinosaurs myself.

                Learning how to write was different. I’m told I was able to write my name without being taught the letters at age three, but I don’t remember this. I remember in preschool, we had to trace the letters on lined paper. The T’s and L’s and I’s all had those little tails on the end where you’re supposed to flair the pencil out after the letter to later develop into the little-used cursive of elementary school. I wrote my R’s backwards like every other little kid. While I learned all my letters in preschool in kindergarten, my mom was the most helpful in helping me learn. We’d go over my letters outside of preschool, she made traceable letters for me, she’d help me with difficult words, both spelling and pronouncing. She’d even help me go above and beyond what we’d do in school. She taught me how you use ‘an’ before a word starting in a vowel. This was good, I probably looked super dumb walking around saying ‘a apple, mommy! I want a apple!”

                I have one piece of writing that I’m particularly proud of. It was a map I drew of my house when I was around four of five, and I had written on it descriptions of items around the house. From the mundane and simple terms, ‘china cabinet’ for the cabinet in the dining room, to ‘daddy sleeping on the couch’ for the comfy spot in the living room. While this isn’t a paper or poem, I feel it was going above and beyond with descriptions and writing for my age. My mom has the original in a frame at my house.

                Outside of the classroom, I read a lot more than I write. I read magazines like TIME and Consumer Reports. I also read nonfiction books, mainly over dinosaurs, medieval life and culture, and earth sciences. When I write, it’s usually small, little notes or haikus.

                As a writer, I feel my strength is the ability to write a presentable paper in a pinch if I absolutely have to. I don’t usually revise enough, which is my largest weakness. Before I start to write, I really don’t do very much other than roll ideas around in my head, unless it’s a research paper. Then, I’ll pound out an outline to rival a completed paper, always giving a B to an A, a 2 to a 1. I usually have a definite idea of what I want to say before I write. I’ll roll ideas around in my head after reading the prompt, so before I sit down to write, I’ll at least have a general idea of what I want to put on the paper. I usually complete three drafts before I complete a piece of writing. That’s the rough draft, my own revisions for draft one, and a peer revision for draft two. When I look back over a piece for my own revisions, the thing I change most is the wording; I’ll catch two of the same words in the same sentence and change one to a better synonym.

                The most difficult challenge I have in writing is in the translation between what I’m thinking to what I’m writing. I have a hard time getting what I want to say into the actual words on the paper. I try to solve this issue by sitting and thinking through what my mind is trying to tell me and not focus on the writing so much. Then I can come back to the paper and say what I think.

                To me, good writing is concise, to the point, informational, and pretty. Concise, because extra words are unnecessary in a paper or piece of writing (RULE SEVENTEEN!!), which should be to the point. The purpose of writing is to provide information, so writing should contain facts and opinions based on those facts.  Lastly, good writing is pretty. Words are pretty to me, the 26 letters combine to create thousands upon thousands of words, into millions of possible sentences, paragraphs, pages and papers.

                After graduation, I think reading a writing will stay major points in my life, especially for college. I’ll be reading a lot of textbooks and writing a lot of papers. I’ll also always read magazines and books, and write down my thoughts on occasion.

                While reading and writing are important foundations in life, there is always room to grow. The ability to grow in these areas is essential in a fulfilling life. Reading is essential to survive in modern society, and writing is a way to convey knowledge and thoughts to others, making it one of the most important processes we as humans can complete.