After a long and rough semester, I’ve finally come to the end of English 250. Throughout my time in this class I’ve written essays, reflected on those essays, reflected on those reflections, and written even more essays. It’s been a lot of work, but it has been a worthwhile experience because my writing and writing process has improved.
I’m a sophomore this semester, but I have not had any writing or presenting classes yet in college. I took multiple Advanced Placement English classes, and I took a college-level speech class in high school. Because of all this I was not nervous as I entered the course. I felt that my standards in writing were good enough and my methods did not need changing. It turns out I still had a lot of things to work on.
Since I began taking this course, my work habits have become much better. In the beginning of the semester I put off the assignments until the day before they were due and rushed to finish them. It never felt good, and I always felt stressed about the assignments. Over the course of the semester I started each assignment a bit earlier than the last so I would have more time. Since there have only been a few assignments this has not gotten much better, but it is still an improvement. My writing process has gotten better too. Since I do not work on everything at once, I have the time to work on essays step-by-step. I now draft my essays and take thorough notes to organize them. Because of this, I usually write out the essays over time and edit along the way, instead of writing the entire thing and editing from there. My rough drafts and final drafts often don’t look much different. Along with these habits, my writing abilities have improved as well.
While this essay is not the perfect example, the way I write and the end products have gotten better over the semester. For example, the organization of my paragraphs in the third assignment was confusing and did not flow properly. In the fourth assignment, I was much more organized, and the ideas were easier to follow. In the third assignment, the transition between paragraphs was clunky and the topic sentences were not related to the concluding sentences. Again, I noticed this and worked to revise it for the fourth and fifth assignments. In those essays each paragraph has its own set of ideas with a beginning, middle, and end. While this introduction might not have quite as good examples, I’m proud of my overall advancements in writing.
Writing is not the only thing I have worked on this semester. I have given a handful of oral presentations with visual components. My proficiency in presenting has not seen drastic changes since there have not been many presentations, but it has improved since high school. There were several presentations in high school that I did not feel comfortable giving, and I have come a long way since then. I was immensely satisfied with the way my presentation for the fourth assignment turned out, especially for its simple design. That’s why I chose to demonstrate it on this website.
This semester has been stressful, but it has been of great help to my composing process. I take my time and work over each piece slowly, and it shows. The process of getting better does not end or begin with this class. It has just been one very successful step along the way. I cannot wait to make even more progress in the future.