Were Having A Bad Morning By Alex Johnson

The abstract idea occurred to me, in room 201, in the front row of Dual Enrollment English 111; this idea regarded what it means to be successful and obtain a good work ethic while producing a high quality essay. First of all, the biggest takeaway from Dual Enrollment English 111 was that it helped mold myself into the hard worker that everyone always talks about. Throughout much of highschool I have never really had to ¨try.¨ This happened to be a big issue being a senior about to enter college. DE English was the medication I needed. From the late night golf matches to crunching at the end of class was was the challenge I needed.

Now as a teacher himself he finds his students struggling to put words on paper and express themselves. He blames the educational system for his students inability to write with their own style and voice. Ballenger stresses the ability to write is more about the topic and the student’s interest in the essay than the grammar and structure of the essays. He finds that other professors view their students essays as badly written with sloppy writing, yet Ballenger focuses on the writing that his students do well. He points out that

Lucille Parkinson McCarthy, author of the article, “A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing Across the Curriculum”, conducted an experiment that followed one student over a twenty-one month period, through three separate college classes to record his behavioral changes in response to each of the class’s differences in their writing expectations. The purpose was to provide both student and professor a better understanding of the difficulties a student faces while adjusting to the different social and academic settings of each class. McCarthy chose to enter her study without any sort of hypothesis, therefore allowing herself an opportunity to better understand how each writing assignment related to the class specifically and “what

Everyone’s An Author with Readings by Andrea Lunsford, Michal Brody, Lisa Ede, Beverly J. Moss, Carole Clark Papper, and Keith Walters; is about how everyday writing is very closely related to academic writing. This book discusses The Need for Rhetoric and Writing, Genres of Writing, The Role of Argument, Research, Style, and includes Readings. The text also bridges the gap between Facebook and academic writing, showing how some tactics students use in social media may also be used in their academic

When the anticipated senior year finally begins, a typical student at Laurel High School enjoys a brief honeymoon of peer dominance and the illusion that the finish line is in sight. Then, reality sets in. College and scholarship applications burden an already hefty load of work so that by December, much like poor little Max the dog in Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch, seniors feel they are dragging forty times their weight up a steep, snowy mountain. I saw an opportunity several years ago to take advantage of their misery by assigning a document I knew most would need to write anyway, the dreaded personal essay. It makes perfect sense: it fits the Common Core standards, and they need the help.

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.”

Every student wants to be successful. However, the success of students around them causes them to exert even more, and sometimes unnecessary, work on their classes. This includes binge studying for a test to be sure that they do better than the students in the class, or as mentioned by Zinsser, “writing ten-page papers to impress them [the professors]” when five-page essays were actually assigned (Zinsser). Because there are students that do this, others feel the need to add more writing to their essays in order to reach the levels of those students.

As a College freshman in his second semester, I have learned to deal with the challenges that I have to deal with peaceful, yet exhilarating moment when my mind engages with an author’s thoughts on a page. As John Dewey states “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” What Dewey insists is from my early days in high school to my first year in college as a freshman, I wanted to know the full concept of English; however, I have now realized this subject would fill in my void of English with noteworthy complexities. This was not the case for most of my second semester in Montgomery College; I always had trouble in various parts of the subject, such as development in thesis statement, sentence writing and reflecting on previous essays. Writing a thesis statement had been one of my down falls in English.

This past year in English has been rewarding and self-fulfilling. I entered the year as a new and improved Poppers in writing essays. A glance at my first paper- an essay on Ender's Game- and my last one in 9th grade, the This I Believe essay, is a great example of the incredible differences in my writing which quickly improved as a freshman. However, entering sophomore year I was struck with the false belief that I was done learning about how to write and that from then on would just be about gaining more experience. How wrong I was.

Transitioning from high school to college can be overwhelming. Before English 1301, I did not worry about preparing for college. I quickly realized that my little background in writing essays was not enough for college courses. Writing is not just a skill that I will need for English classes. In college, I will have to use effective writing skills in all my classes to complete research papers, essay tests and communicate with professors.

In the fall semester of 2015, my English Composition 1 class with 3 classes-per-week started. To conduct this paper I will briefly describe me. I am a freshman with the major of Petroleum Engineering. This information is relevant, in fact, because I will compare my expected major writing and the writing I am using right now. In a way to introduce me to future academic writings, the course of English Composition 1, indeed, has taught me important skills that can help me cope for future non-major required courses for me and in some aspects of my major.

Lejla Hodzic Mrs.Monroe English III(H): Period 3 Journal Reflection-MP1 When first writing in my journal I struggled with how deep to go with my discussion questions and what I should be asking my classmates. I feel that I have struggled with this because I lack confidence on what I am trying to prove or say in my writing. When reading in the past I have never pushed myself to question the author’s purpose or ask questions that invoke much thought. Up to this point in the year writing in my journal as well as annotating in the text, has helped my reading and writing immensely.

Each essay I wrote took me several time to write, several drafts which show that I have improve every time I do the drafts to write a perfect masterpiece. I learned a lot of skills and techniques this quarter, which has helped me to improve and progress my writing skills for the future. I will remember the skills, techniques, and tips that professor gave us in this English class for my higher education. For example, all the time that I went to visit professor Sapozhnikov office hours to receive help on my out-of -class essays has helped me to improve, grow, and progress in my writing skills as a writer. Some of the significant changes I have made as I was progressing and growing were to develop a strong thesis to help support my claims as I write my essays, such as facts, observations, illustration, and examples.

My Writing Experience In previous courses, my writing skills have been mediocre or just enough to pass the class. Throughout the duration of this course, I have written a variety of papers using different techniques and skills. Previously I would write assuming that the only audience would be my instructor. This course has helped me realize that there are many steps and skills involved with writing a well-organized and easy to comprehend essay.

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.