Reflection: A Race To A Successful Finish

Although I feel like this semester went by ridiculously fast, I can easily look back and see that I gained a lot more knowledge about how to write correctly than I thought I would. Coming into English 104, I was very confident with my writing because I had always gotten good grades on my essays throughout high school and my first year of college, including on my ACT test. When I saw the syllabus and saw that we were working with a blog website, I instantly thought of the short blogs that I was required to do last year at Northeastern Illinois and I was sure that it would be a breeze because they were very short. I was wrong, but not at all disappointed. I love to write and writing has basically been my thing since I was younger so I couldn’t wait to see what we were actually going to be writing about.

I remember the first couple days of the semester when we did our very first encounter. We had to write about where we see ourselves in the year 2021.  I was interested in a heartbeat because I love writing about the future, so I wrote “I walk out of my back door on the beach of Southern California. I am a very hard working and passionate educator that loves to help children who cannot always help themselves.” along with me having a beautiful wife and other luxuries. I could write about it for days. My personal mentality has everything to do with what I am going to be doing next. I am the type of person that is always looking to make moves and excel every day of my life if I get the chance. That includes learning more and taking constructive criticism on my so called “perfect” writing. After my first couple encounters and short essays, I realized that my past good grades were definitely not transitioning as smoothly as the move here. I would post my papers on gateways and I would receive all super nice and general comments from my classmates because in reality, nobody is going to say anything too critical. What’s different about me is that it is critique that made me as mature as I am today and although I may not like it sometimes, I always pull through. The only person who would actually criticize my writing was Kimberly Volmer, which was my instructor.

By reading the comments and markings on my graded papers, I began to realize what my English teacher actually wanted me to do. The one comment that seriously stuck in my head when I read it was the comment that was made in light of my uncertainty in my writing sometimes. It said “Write like your 100% right. Be YOURSELF!” That’s when I finally just let loose and wrote my next paper exactly how I would if I were talking to one of my friends about something that I felt strongly about and I have to say that it was so much easier to go about. After a week of complete anxiety, I got my short essay back and on it, was a “B+”.  I was so relieved that I had done as well as I did. I started to notice that my writing had gotten a lot smoother with its wording and it seemed more, well, real. Even the comments on gateways were getting more detailed showing that that feeling of connection between writer and reader was finally there. One example of my writing that I am actually proud of is my third encounter about creative blogging when I say, “The audience is looking for some “UMPH”, not just a Microsoft Word document. The color scheme and the imagination put into something like this can sometimes be as important as the writing itself because if you lack creativity in your work, your actual writing might not even be looked at by a passer-by. The design of your site also plays a big part of ethos in rhetorical writing. In my eyes, the design could be a “self venting” exercise that reflects the kind of person that you are. Depending on the creativity shown, your personality might come out more than you thought it would and the audience will most likely enjoy reading your blog a lot more.” The biggest difference I saw was the tone in my papers. I had this sort of overconfidence in my writing that wasn’t yet cockiness and I absolutely loved it. I felt like my opinion was put out so much stronger than it ever was before and it felt amazing. I wasn’t afraid to state my complete opinion.

Seeing all of this difference in my writing was such a good thing for me and I’m so glad that I finally “came out of my shell” when it came to my writing. I realized this when I would look at my older essays and see that they were pretty bland and tasteless. To be honest, whenever I would write papers in high school, I would use as many intelligent words as I could think of when I would explain myself and it would make my writing really confusing. A perfect example of my “father tongue” is the very first sentences of my first article that I had written when I write “Ones idea of self can be approached with many definitions. The differences that come with individuality are what make a person unique in their own way. It is the mixture of individual characteristics that make a person who they are whether their distinct anatomy of self is being judged by a random person in society or by their own outlook on themselves.” Let’s just say I wrote like I was trying to write for the president. It’s pretty bad. This basically gave me a reality check with my writing because after seeing all of the progress, it gave me a reason why my peers were so general with me when commenting on gateways. The feedback was general because my writing was general and I can easily give credit to my entire class for playing a big part in the transformation of my writing skills.

Although my writing has gotten so much better, I still have some flaws in my new and improved style. The problems that I find in my writing are mainly minor mistakes such as using run on sentences and kind of “beating around the bush” in a sense. I always catch myself babbling on and on about a point that I am trying to make when in reality, I just need to say what I want to say. I finally came to the conclusion that talking about what you want to say is much harder than just saying it, so now, that is exactly what I do.  I am still working on my excessive use of “big words” in my writing and I have to say that it is at an all time low. I still tend to zone in sometimes and write like a president but most of the time I catch myself before it gets too out of hand. In my opinion, there is not much more to change about my writing and I can’t wait for my writing to be as good as it can possibly be.

Since my change in writing, I have noticed that both the assertiveness and confidence in my papers are now the two stronger factors in my writing for a change. I find it so weird how the areas that I struggled in with my past writing are now my stronger points. For some reason I feel as if my writing actually makes a connection with the readers now. No more general tones or super fancy words because now I recognize how superior my writing can be without trying to sound smarter than I really am. Being myself is really all I need. Taking that person who I truly am inside and putting it into my writing was probably the best decision I could have made because not only has my writing progressed, but it is so much easier for me to write papers now due to the fact that I see it as me just talking. That’s it. Whatever I feel like saying, I can say, and nobody can tell me that I’m wrong. What I feel is what I write and that is what makes me love writing so much more nowadays. Thank you English 104. I couldn’t have done it without you.

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