My Opinion On English 101

English 111 has made a positive impact on me as a student. I have learned a lot in English considering the short amount of time I have spent in the class. English has always been one of my strong points, but I have always looked to find ways to improve my English skills. During the class I learned several new techniques and skills to improve myself as a student. I am glad I had a smart professor to help guide me along the way.

This semester in ENG 101 I went in with a better perspective and view of what the class would be like versus last semester when I hated that I had to enroll in ENG 100E. I knew that it would be similar to ENG 100E but with more emphasis on writing and actually putting to use everything that we learned last semester. Although my ACT score was the reason that I was in ENG 100E last semester I am really thankful that I had to take that class, because it actually helped me this semester with ENG 101. This semester I was more involved and actually participated versus last year where I rarely opened up to answer any questions in class. I as well feel as if taking 100E has helped me this semester to become a better writer with adding more description to my essays to make the reader actually visualize what they are reading or have read. Even though I still may not be the best writer I am able to see for myself that I am no longer that inexperienced writer who’s blinded by their writing errors. I am able to take advice from others for my writing without being offended my mistakes, and I know that they are just trying to help me in the long run.

Some areas where I need to improve include transitions between paragraphs, being to repetitive, and my conclusions. This class has definitely helped me make my transitions better; however they still could use some improvement. I have to make sure that the reader can comprehend my thought process and that my transitions do not get in the way of the flow of the paper. In some of the rough drafts for my essays I could not find links between paragraphs at all but after work shopping in class I believe that they have significantly improved. I also need to make sure that I do not repeat the same ideas or words too many

Starting this year, I thought English 102 was just going to be another general education requirement I needed to have in order to graduate. English has never been my favorite subject, so I guess it is safe to say that I was not super excited about this class. However, this class turned out to be different then I thought. It turned out to be more useful then I originally thought. English 102 was both helpful and fairly simple because of what what I learned, the effort I put in and how prepared I was.

English 101 might seem like an easy course to take for some students. For other students such as myself, English 101 was one of the classes I feared and procrastinated on taking. Coming from an ESL background, English was the class I have always struggled with the most. I’ve always excelled in science/ mathematics courses. I prefer the correct answers to be facts and universal. Creativity is not my forte. The process of putting my thoughts down on paper in an organized manner, with correct punctuation, and citing works used, seemed like a complicated, tedious task before taking English 101 this summer.

As I entered into English 101, I had the expectation of writing many unimaginative papers, while stressing if I was going to be able to complete my college and high school tasks. On top of all that, I was afraid of having a monotonous, boring professor. I soon realized that these assumptions were all invalid. I managed my tasks by completing everything in a timely manner and needed all the advice I could get from an outstanding English professor. When I enter English 102 in the fall, I have the expectation of being in a more language based composition class. My goals for English 102 are to continue to improve my writing skills, complete my work on time, and obtain information that I can use as I proceed in college. After I accomplish English 102, I hope to be able to be an improved writer and be able to convey ideas more

The lessons in week 2 about run-on sentences and sentence fragments helped refresh my memory about sentence structure. I think that because we had multiple writing assignments as well as discussion posts, I was able to practice this skill. In my everyday life I am a stay at home mom so I do not have the need to write paragraphs or essays often. While taking this course I was also taking two others, so I was able to apply my skills in those courses and get even more practice. I have never had strong skills on developing and writing a thesis statement, which is an important thing to know. The lesson in week five helped me with this. I was able to practice and build upon my knowledge base in this area as

By taking English 102, it has given me skills to help become a college level writer. It is important to become a college level writer so that it better prepares me for future college courses. College level writing is going to be extremely important for me especially, as I go into law school, and hoping to be a future lawyer. During this course, I have learned how to better incorporate research and evidence into my essays, whether that be to help prove a point or to just provide general background knowledge on an issue. English 102 has helped prepare me as well on helping me become a better writer, by helping me understand what a good source is to use and how to apply these aspects of research without showing bias, but simply stating the facts. Through

After completing English 1101, I expected English 1102 to be easier. When I started doing the work in the class and taking tests, I realized that the work was a little more challenging. Now that I have finished the second part of this course, I really have grown to like reading and writing. This course is a great course to take because it has given me a lot of knowledge on how to write a great paper, and it taught me there is a lot of things to write about.

Many of my writing traits have changed since I have been in English 101. While being in English this semester my writing has continued to improve greatly. This was mostly due to what I have changed since high school. One thing that I have changed is the way I plot out my essays. The way I was going about it before did not work for me because of the format that my previous teachers required. Now, after being in college, I can freely set up my essays in a way that I am comfortable with and can understand if I need to look back at them later. Another thing that has specifically changed about my writing is the word choice I decide to use. Now in English 101 I use an array of new words that had not been in my vocabulary in high school. I find myself using more sophisticated words when writing my sentences as opposed to what I was doing previously.

English 101 was most certainly a learning experience for me. Of course, everyone says that about their English 101 course in college, but I’m being as honest as humanly possible— if it is, in fact, humanly possible (joke). In all sincerity, I was expecting my English 101 Professor, Dr. Bailey, to find a string of incoherencies in my writing and lack of structure, for I believed my writing was replete with; to the contrary, Dr.Bailey found an unexpected set of errors, and helped me realize why these particular errors were even occurring.

Throughout my academic carrer, I have had a history of struggling with English classes. I was excited to take English 101 because I believed it would most effectively teach me the basics of successful writing and communication. In high school, I developed mediocre writing skills and struggled with reading comprehension so I knew these topics would pose a problem in any English class I take. Despite the fact that I was in AP Language in high school, I learned very little and did not improve my writing and communication skills as much as I would have liked. In English 101 , I would like to change that and enhance my time management skills, grammar skills, and overall writing ability.

As a final point, the 102 writing course helped me improve my writing skills tremendously. Our professor used two techniques in class to help us develop our essays which are Peer reviews and rubrics. Peer reviews gave me an insight of what other people think of what I wrote, and their comments were taken into consideration

During the group discussions it helped me earn feedback from my different peers in the class and view the different thoughts and ideas that my fellow classmates had. When writing an essay, having different classmates review my work and give feedback helped me learn more about myself and other people. It helped me learn that people will always have a different point of view when it comes to writing, and I also learned that peer reviews are a precise and beneficial way of showing different ideas and showing mistakes that I made in my essay. This also contributed to my overall improvements of

English 101 was a challenging course. A constant stream of reading and writing lead to a demanding yet rewarding semester. The variety of texts read and written about provided a plethora of life lessons and demonstrations of values. Now at the end of the course I find myself a better student and writer. The texts themselves were not influential to my growth as a critical reader or college student. Rather, it was my own analysis of the texts that allowed me to consider other perspectives on technology use in the classroom and the importance of revision when it comes to school work.