Self-Reflective Letter
8437 Liv 242
Chillicothe, MO 64601
December 11, 2015
Dr. Jill Watkins
Adjunct Professor
North Central Missouri College
1301 Main Street
Trenton, MO 64683
Dear Doctor Watkins:
Looking back this last couple of months much has changed on how I view myself as a writer. Before taking College Composition and Research I did not view myself as writer at all, and always thought I could not write well. Now, after taking this course my writing evolved with every essay I wrote. I believed I learned and improved immensely; however, there is much I could still improve on to make my essays stand out.
First of all, as I wrote each essay I learned more about the writing process and structure. Before this semester I barely used and I disliked pre-writings, but now I appreciate using them because pre-writings helped me write coherent papers. Plus, I came to enjoy being able have peer review. This allowed to to see how much I need to improve on my writing. Furthermore, after my pre-write essay I never realized how much structure a paper has; I knew the basics, but that was all I knew. Learning about how much more involved thesis statements are, parallel structure, and how a conclusion paragraph is set up came as a surprise. Another part that surprised me is how often I use cliches and how I am supposed to avoid them. As learning each new week more about writing, my level of understanding and quality of writing has went up.
Next, I had strengths before this class but this class helped improved each strengths to a point where I was proud to write. From the start, I had good content and my structure was not bad. For example, my Personal Narrative was one of my earliest papers and so the paper was rough, but my paper had a few good points. Writing about football after my injury gave my paper good content, and I did structure my paper well enough that the paragraph had a coherent layout. However, as the weeks went by, I learned immensely about essay structure. For instance, my best paper was the summary response essay. I think the reason for my success started with my pre-writing; after doing two pre-writes on different subjects I learned how to prepare my pre-writing well enough that it became a strong base for my writing. With that, my structure was very well written that I had only a couple small mistakes with author tags. Everything else was good especially citations. With that in mind, I made sure with any writing with quotes to not forget author tags or citations. In addition, I noticed I write much better with a set writing prompt, as in the summary response, then I do with more open topics, as in the narration essay. I believe this true because I am more analytical in thought and having a set prompt allows to me have a stronger structure. Still, with all those strengths I have many weaknesses to improve on.
Since I am not originally not from America, but instead from Bolivia; I knew coming to this class I have many mistakes in my English. After my weakest paper, the narrative essay, however, I have realized that my weaknesses were more sever than I thought before. I did learn that I am very prone to using cliches. My problem with cliches is that I do not realize I am using them a lot of the times but after writing eight essays I have been able to notice some cliches from time to time. Still my two biggest problems are my sentence phrasing and comma usage which were apparent in my narrative and editorial essays. After looking at my narrative essay, I find myself writing just like I talk and think which causes major problems because: I mix up words, leave words out, do not clarify, and jumble up order of words. These causes my writing to be blurred at times. Even though I have worked to improve to be able to write clearer, I still think at times the same way as before, but I see my thought process changing. In addition, I learned from my editorial essay that my comma usage was either missing or did not belong. This hinder the ability to read my paper fluidly. Therefore, after talking about comma splices in class I realized that I was lost and did not understand them. I did get outside class help which allowed me to finally be able to notice where commas belong. I have improved at using commas and to my advantage, but not to the level I want. Although, my weaknesses are still present in my writing, they have less of a presence thanks to this course.
In conclusion, I am thankful for taking this course, even if at times I wish I had not, because my writing improved more than it ever has. I feel my essays from the beginning of the course to my essays at the end almost seem to be written by two different people. I have learned much throughout the semester that I know will be helpful in years to come. Also, I want to be able to write more clearly, and to achieve this I will go back to get outside help. Still, with all my improvement on my strengths and weaknesses, I hope to improve on them more during the next semester. Overall, I would like to thank you for helping me become a writer.
Sincerely,
Steen Anthony
Chillicothe, MO 64601
December 11, 2015
Dr. Jill Watkins
Adjunct Professor
North Central Missouri College
1301 Main Street
Trenton, MO 64683
Dear Doctor Watkins:
Looking back this last couple of months much has changed on how I view myself as a writer. Before taking College Composition and Research I did not view myself as writer at all, and always thought I could not write well. Now, after taking this course my writing evolved with every essay I wrote. I believed I learned and improved immensely; however, there is much I could still improve on to make my essays stand out.
First of all, as I wrote each essay I learned more about the writing process and structure. Before this semester I barely used and I disliked pre-writings, but now I appreciate using them because pre-writings helped me write coherent papers. Plus, I came to enjoy being able have peer review. This allowed to to see how much I need to improve on my writing. Furthermore, after my pre-write essay I never realized how much structure a paper has; I knew the basics, but that was all I knew. Learning about how much more involved thesis statements are, parallel structure, and how a conclusion paragraph is set up came as a surprise. Another part that surprised me is how often I use cliches and how I am supposed to avoid them. As learning each new week more about writing, my level of understanding and quality of writing has went up.
Next, I had strengths before this class but this class helped improved each strengths to a point where I was proud to write. From the start, I had good content and my structure was not bad. For example, my Personal Narrative was one of my earliest papers and so the paper was rough, but my paper had a few good points. Writing about football after my injury gave my paper good content, and I did structure my paper well enough that the paragraph had a coherent layout. However, as the weeks went by, I learned immensely about essay structure. For instance, my best paper was the summary response essay. I think the reason for my success started with my pre-writing; after doing two pre-writes on different subjects I learned how to prepare my pre-writing well enough that it became a strong base for my writing. With that, my structure was very well written that I had only a couple small mistakes with author tags. Everything else was good especially citations. With that in mind, I made sure with any writing with quotes to not forget author tags or citations. In addition, I noticed I write much better with a set writing prompt, as in the summary response, then I do with more open topics, as in the narration essay. I believe this true because I am more analytical in thought and having a set prompt allows to me have a stronger structure. Still, with all those strengths I have many weaknesses to improve on.
Since I am not originally not from America, but instead from Bolivia; I knew coming to this class I have many mistakes in my English. After my weakest paper, the narrative essay, however, I have realized that my weaknesses were more sever than I thought before. I did learn that I am very prone to using cliches. My problem with cliches is that I do not realize I am using them a lot of the times but after writing eight essays I have been able to notice some cliches from time to time. Still my two biggest problems are my sentence phrasing and comma usage which were apparent in my narrative and editorial essays. After looking at my narrative essay, I find myself writing just like I talk and think which causes major problems because: I mix up words, leave words out, do not clarify, and jumble up order of words. These causes my writing to be blurred at times. Even though I have worked to improve to be able to write clearer, I still think at times the same way as before, but I see my thought process changing. In addition, I learned from my editorial essay that my comma usage was either missing or did not belong. This hinder the ability to read my paper fluidly. Therefore, after talking about comma splices in class I realized that I was lost and did not understand them. I did get outside class help which allowed me to finally be able to notice where commas belong. I have improved at using commas and to my advantage, but not to the level I want. Although, my weaknesses are still present in my writing, they have less of a presence thanks to this course.
In conclusion, I am thankful for taking this course, even if at times I wish I had not, because my writing improved more than it ever has. I feel my essays from the beginning of the course to my essays at the end almost seem to be written by two different people. I have learned much throughout the semester that I know will be helpful in years to come. Also, I want to be able to write more clearly, and to achieve this I will go back to get outside help. Still, with all my improvement on my strengths and weaknesses, I hope to improve on them more during the next semester. Overall, I would like to thank you for helping me become a writer.
Sincerely,
Steen Anthony