I need help in this reflection essay. I am not allowed to get help from my English Professor so I need an outside opinion on my paper. Please read and make comments. Thank you :D
Use the introduction to reflect upon your development as a writer this semester and discuss how the writing in your portfolio demonstrates that development.
Writing and art are the muses' identical offspring. They are almost identical in the sense of an artist who paints; the artist paints an image crafting a specific color and texture as major devices in communicating meaning. Writing possessing the same components but instead follows specific parameters, such as structure, syntax and grammar. Despite nuances, the eyes are the main objects of their allurements. We begin to learn the components of writing in elementary school, but writing began as something enjoyable and creative. "Write about your summer vacation," teachers would often say at the start of each school year. However, as I embraced the English curriculum at the high school level, boundaries surrounding writing become solidified, hardened beyond breaking. Students learn that this is the way to write a book report, never use first person unless it's an opinion, and never begin a sentence with a preposition. As I explored the main conflicts that exist in literature: man vs. nature, man vs. himself, and man vs. society, I discovered a new conflict that has yet to exist: man vs. writing.
At the beginning of the semester in College Writing R1A, I had preconceived ideas as to what "good" writing was, and how I should approach it. My mentality of writing at the college level was going to be strict without space for flexibility or creativity. However, through my exploration, I have realized that "good writing" is really up to the author and their audience. When assessing an essay assignment I contemplate in terms as how an artist may contemplate when creating an artwork. Initially a need, a calling drives me to begin my new work, a line is drawn, a color is placed, a series of marks are made-soon the dominant elements show themselves like a series of characters in a story, each striving toward a goal until I have a completed work. While working on my first essay, I discovered that to be successful, I had to negate my perceptions of writing and allow this course to restructure my mentality by writing. Throughout this portfolio, I demonstrate my development and growth as a writer. In the creation of this portfolio, I have accomplished several of the global objectives for this class. These included writing a clear thesis statement, showing awareness of my audience, and revealing the effect of successful, critical proofreading and editing techniques. As I aimed to meet these outcomes throughout the semester, my writing has slowly, but surely developed into organized, critical, and academically correct text.
Through this course I wrote 6 essays, several reading responses and quick writes. As our class was focused on humor based prose, each assignment was pertinent in the development of my writing ability. The first essay we were assigned to write, was based on a humorous event that has occurred in our lives. Specifically, we had to write the event in three different styles, a concise form, an exaggerated form, and an academic form. As this was the first essay in the course, my writing was not up to par as I hoped it to be. My writing was redundant in its statements, but as this class taught me, "quality not quantity," is more effective in writing. I learned how to write concisely in order to tighten up my writing pieces. Another technique that ameliorated the development of my conciseness was demonstrated in our reading responses. We had to read either selected passages or novels and write a brief summary and opinions/reactions to assigned readings. Despite my improvement in concision after each assignment, I also was allowed to express my opinion about the readings. As was also demonstrated in our quick writes, I was able to write unconstrained as a technique to develop ideas. This free writing technique succored my writing process as it allowed me to jot down ideas and create arguments from those ideas. As in art, colors give flesh to paintings. As in writing, the ability to paint with color freely allows for my imagination to explore and manipulate ideas.
My main weakness in writing was my failure to create a strong claim in my thesis to support. I never knew the importance of the claim as it sets the tone for the rest of the paper. But through practicing in the course, I was able to create stronger thesis statements. For example, the most difficult essay I wrote was a persuasive essay in which I supported the argument that David Sedaris's memoirs in "Me talk Pretty One Day," was juvenalian satire. Through this essay however, I developed the technique to create thesis statements with clarity with specificity to enhance the authority of my statement. Such that, I stuck to one clear idea upon which I elaborated on.
The only constants for me in writing are the elements of revision and editing. A work is never finished; it can get closer and closer the more it is read, reread, revised, and polished, but ultimately, more work can always be done. This concept was solidified when I began to work on my portfolio. Pieces that I had already written, revised, polished, turned in, and received a grade on, needed more work before they were finally included in the portfolio. I have learned grammar and correction skill by having the opportunity to correct our classmates' essays. We read our colleagues essays, correcting the grammatical errors, and gave suggestions to word placement and sentence usage. Seeing other people correct my essays helped me view my essays from different viewpoints. Another technique that gives me a new perspective in my correction process and useful was having my essays be read to me electronically. Usually as I read my essays repeatedly, I wasn't able to catch mistakes. But as I had it read to me, I am able to hear the irregular segments in my essays.
I feel that I have significantly grown and matured in writing. I believe that the essays I've chosen for my portfolio show my strong writing skills that include the ability to synthesize ideas and concepts, to convey these ideas with clarity and creativity, and to develop substantial writing skills. Therefore, I feel that having completed this course, I am now equipped with sufficient knowledge and skills to take my writing to a higher level. It was like a firm understanding of CWR1A was laid out like a puzzle board without the pieces. With each essay I wrote, another piece would fit in, each essay constructed my understanding on the learning that was achieved in the essay before it. However, my puzzle cannot ever be totally filled in. I hope that as I continue to learn, I can acquire more pieces and build upon what I have learned from CWR1A.
