Personal Narrative: My Dual Credit Composition

My history as a writer has been a bit of a struggle of slow development. From a young age I had a hard time with spelling and this is still a trouble area for me, even with the help of autocorrect. As I grew in age and as a writer my problematic area became not including enough nitty gritty details. My bad experiences that I recall would always involve the start of writing because I struggle with beginning paragraphs. Also, I tend to use the ending paragraph to just repeat myself, so overall my first and last paragraphs are usually shit. I find that I usually have more success when writing about something that I truly enjoy and struggle when talking about something I do not really care about. Both my parents were minimal to no help with writing

As I was reading Melissa Duffy’s “Inspiration, and Craig Vetter’s “Bonehead Writing,” I found myself connecting with Vetter’s paper more than Duffy’s. I found that the presentation in “Bonehead Writing” to capture my attention, and that Vetter’s feelings about writing was similar to my opinion on writing. Through his wording and humor, I think Craig Vetter wrote the best essay. I find that the wording and presentation of an article or essay influences my opinion of the writer, and it affects how I receive the idea they are trying to present to me. Craig Vetter uses a blunt approach to convey his idea that writing is nearly impossible to teach, and describes writing as “A blood sport, a walk in the garden of agony every time out.”

My Debt I have paid my education through financial aid from Federal institutions, I do not earn enough to pay for my college up front. I have worked at various jobs while attending school to pay for my living expensive but none of that money has been applied to my debt thus far. Also, due to the high cost of living I am unable to make any payments on my loans currently. I’ve tried to make well with what I have for the foreseeable future which is bellow the poverty line.

In the “Your Honors and Activities” section, I only listed the activities that I have participated in for more than 3 years. But, I choose to write my essay on the most important activity to me than I am currently been participating in for less than a year - my volunteer work at the Child Development Institute’s Early Learning Center.

The first Course Learning Outcome I achieved occurred during my first essay, the Reflective Narrative, was “Reflect upon and describe the development of your composing practices”. When writing my first draft, I sat down and thought of all the details of the day I worked as a beverage deliveryman. Upon the

I never even got to say goodbye. When my dad left it was the hardest it's ever been for my family and I, and we were never quite the same. After a while I began to fill into my father's shoes. “Aaron, one day you’re going to have to raise a family of your own. You’re a man, you’re going to have to be the provider for the family.” These words spoken by my mother have run deep through my soul and has shaped me to the very being I am today. I have three sisters, a mother, and a niece. Being the only boy in a family full of women is tough; it seems like the transition from being a boy to a man swiftly creeps upon you, and you suddenly inherit a large sense of responsibility within the household.

As a child, I had no father to guide me on the path to maturity. Even in the idyllic scene of a father and son playing catch, as I tossed the football onto the roof of my house by myself, the roof replaced the person that I was supposed to learn the essence of manhood from. Although my early and painful realization of his absence was distressing, I learned how to rise above my disappointment and become my own motivation. Throughout my life, I have been knocked down, but I was never defeated–that is what defines me as a fighter. Relentless in achieving my goals, I will myself to succeed despite all that deters me.

In this class I’ve transformed my writing from novice to expert and I am very proud to say that. Most importantly above all you will learn about yourself in ways that you never thought. That’s through the writings and projects we’ve done on others identity. The writings that shape our own identity were through blogs we’d have

In putting together my portfolio, I could definitely see that I have made an incredible progress from the foundation of this class. My practice of grammar, words and the general structure of my papers has improved massively. Reflecting on my strengths and weaknesses as a writer, as well as things I have learned in my own writing process is a big accomplishment.

Writing essays and other types of posts has always been difficult for me. But, throughout this composition class, I have learned many interesting and new things about the different types of writing styles. When starting this class, I considered myself to be an average writer with run-of-the-mill vocabulary, ordinary sentence structure and typical finished products. This class has helped me greatly improve my writing skills in a variety of ways. I have learned multiple things by taking this class, such as new ways to approach writing and that there is much that I still need to learn about composition.

Caleb Corkery is an Associate Professor of English who wrote “Literacy Narratives and Confidence Building in the Writing Classroom.” In his article, he discusses the positive and negative affects student writers have about writing literacy narratives. Correspondingly, in “Heroes, Rebels, and Victims: Student Identities in Literacy Narratives,” by Bronwyn Williams, who also is a professor of English, she conveys the idea that through literacy narratives, the writer can develop a sense of identity through their work. Through the comparison of Corkery and Williams’ articles about literacy narratives, and through my own literacy narrative writing experience, I do agree with these two authors’ assertions that writing these literacy narratives are

I was most engaged in this course when I was doing the research for this paper. Filtering through all the research and figuring out what is valuable information was the most exciting part for me. Additionally, finding information and connecting it to a suspect is the most satisfying part of my job. Writing the actual research paper has been the second most engaging thing during this course. It is difficult for me because I know I am not a great writer, but there are improvements in my writing since starting college.

Lani: I was helping for someone’s project for COMM 245; I was in the video lab, in the studio. I was on campus and decided to contact everyone I knew who comes to the school. I remember I sent out a snap saying guys I think there is a shooting, be careful and then I started sending out individual texts to people making sure they were okay, like hey are you good? Stay out of an area. I didn’t know how many people were getting shot. I just knew it’s not good and that we have to be careful. At first, the campus was like we are unsure, just be careful, and then it took some time till I finally got an email that said stay on campus and were held there for about two hours, I just kept recording.

As I began the journey of returning to school, one of my biggest fears, was the writing aspect in the classes. The fear of reading and writing has never been a strong quality; however, I have never able to successfully be creative in the way I learn. I understand my weaknesses and when I need to focus on my strengths. I am constantly learning new ways, skills, and tools to utilize to continue to grow as a writer.

The art of argument persuasion I’ve learned in this course is so beneficial for my marketing major. Other than that, it made me develop the essay writing skills necessary for success in my studies at the university level. This English course also taught me how powerful written words can be, and how the delivery of the tone is important for the reader. The tone of a narrative is different than the tone of a research, where the difference makes the paper. Also, the power in written words tells how much it is crucial to mankind.