Instructor Amy Doty  

English Composition I

13 July 2018

 The Sour Patch Type 

            At the age of 30 I finally can say that I have learned to love writing. Now when I saylearn to lovewriting, assume no exaggeration. I was that kid that in middle school where multiple words like biography, 1000 words, reading comprehension and, essay made me cringe, bead sweat and, cry. Not ashamed to admit it either, I’m a crier. One would say I have anxiety and that may be true, because my mom would never take me to an allergist to get a diagnosis.  I would pray “Oh dear sweet baby Jesus please send me a sign that this is not real life.” Though my faith never ceased, I never got that sign. Ever. All the teachers were out to get me, I just knew it to be true. How could it be that all three grade levels in junior high would be on the same page? Did they have private meetings about me during the summer? Did they email each other? “You’re writing is nice but it’s all over the place.” My 6^thgrade English teacher would say. Actually, they all said it. 

My writing was always so basic. A get-it-over-with type of paper was what I did. I remember in 7^thgrade my teacher was handing back papers that my class. We had to write about a famous person in history. For some God-awful reason, I chose Johnnie Cochran. He wasn’t even famous and that was a major error in my part. She sat my autobiography on my desk facing upward so everyone could see I didn’t do such an exceptional job as others. “You’ve got some good pointers, but I wish you would elaborate more.” She said to the top of my head as I looked down at this document of mine with her red graffiti all over it. The smell of her red ink was so unyielding it made my eyes water. Or I was crying, but that’s neither here nor there! D. I got a D. Her side notes read ‘why did you choose him?’ ‘please add more facts.’ ‘your details need to be in order.’ There that statement is again. Didn’t she see how flawless my hand writing was, why does no one seem to care about that?

            In later years, about…three, it was in my mind that writers, authors and, poets that have nothing but time on their hands and patient parents growing up, because I always said to myself “No one really enjoys writing, do they? Remember this is coming from a kid that thought she could pray her way out of writing. It took a while for me to improve my writing. By improve I mean actually taking my time, having a solid point, using resources and, of course a dictionary. It’s all fun and games till you forget the simple rule of ‘i before e except after c’ but let’s not get into grammar shall we. At this point is where my continually growth in love for writing began. I had an assignment to do and it was not even graded. It was given to me by my grandmother. I got into a little bit of trouble which was no surprise, but I got grounded. She sent me to the dining room table and said, “write me a story like you would in school, you have two hours.” Uh oh! It’s happening! I’m beading sweat and getting all teary-eyed again. Second thought is where the hell am I supposed to write. After all this is a house of a grandma. There is not one inch of space on her dining room table. I knew I better get to it, Juanita McWilliams was not the type of lady you want to mess with. I wrote, crossed out words, looked at the ceiling, cried of course but then the next thing I knew writing a story on who I wanted to be. The composition of anything I have done has been a simple expression of me. I owe credit to that fascinating woman for taking me out of the elements of school and that writing, or reading can be done at any time for any reason. I now take time to make a daily journal I call it a journal only because the word diary is so high school yet and still, don’t read it. 

Instructor Amy Doty

ENGL1010

5 August 2018 

Writing Reflection

            Our first assignment was to write a paper on our position on a particular social issue. I chose to write about social media and how it affects the youth. I decided on this topic at the very last minute when I went through the thought process of finding ways to make social media in itself intriguing. Almost chose to write about how the world perceives us as individuals through social media and found a roadblock. Once I started to write about social media I realized I would have to have an audience, from there I found that youth is a huge group that I can relate to. From there I had to decide what I wanted to tell them, would I want to inform them of an issued or persuade them to not be a part of it.

            In my writing process, I began to ‘vomit’ words on paper. I got a suggestion from Amy, our instructor, to make sure word vomit was in sentence for and I had a purpose for my paper. Once the main supporting facts were there I began to organize the paper. Started with what I wanted to say, my position, my point. After that was complete, my words and reasons and analysis began to pour from my fingertips. I am not usually one to write that way, but it was very effective. When I revised my essay, I chose to read it out loud a few times. That corrected punctuation and spelling errors, but the most helpful way were to have a writing tutor. He had pointed out that my paper didn’t even have a thesis and that that was ok, it was easily found in my writing. Also, the best advice he gave was the change of my title from Addict to Engage in Those Around You. A simple part of a sentence. 

            The part of my writing that I could have improved is the use of time. It was often suggested that I start a rough draft, leave it alone for a while and then come back to it. I have heard a numerous amount of times and taking that suggestion was very helpful. Seeing the process of how I wrote just from rough draft to final draft my essay came to fruition. 

            The purpose of my writing is to inform youth that there is such q thing as a world outside of the web and it is necessary to know and understand the impact of too much social media will have on your interpersonal skills. My primary audience is youth, but I would want to pinpoint teenagers from 13-18 because I feel that is an age group where persuasion can be retained and expended later in life. I have a thing for thinking about the future especially since I have children. It’s easy to remember that us adults won’t live forever, but what we do forget, is what the future will hold and who holds the future.  Bringing me back to the youth of our society. I would continue to reach them via a blog. Although we are trying to steer away from social media but to be realistic, kids will read a blog before a paper. 

 

Instructor Amy Doty

 

ENGL1010

 

31 August 2018

Essay 3 Reflection

            In this argument essay I must say that I enjoyed it compared to the others. I felt a sense joy when I got to compare my thoughts against my mothers, FINALLY. When we began speaking of how to write this paper in class I often kept saying that I sound like a broken record because, it felt like I had said 85% of it before in the previous essays. But Amy made sense when she said “go deeper”, so when that came to mind I just elaborated on subjects that I thought were important but had only spoken briefly about previously. The writing structure I king of talked about before was a little different than what Amy had set it up to be, but she did say it was ok to write that way and she helped me a lot it sifting through the outline on where to add in the aspect of the MEAL plan. I was happy with how that worked out and how the flow of the writing came easier for me. 

            Somethings that I struggled with was the outline. I took multiple instead of one view point to argue in this paper. I think that is where It became the most difficult because it was like a see-saw. I would write about one thing I wanted to argue and then start from the bottom on another reason or view point that I wanted to confront. Another issue I have noticed and I see it becoming a pattern, is when I write I tend to go off on a subject and don’t really come back to where I began. I sort of get lost in the evidence and examples of the MEAL plan and it is difficult for me to find my way back. When I write it all makes sense to me in my head and even when I proof read I had a good grasp on confidence, until I am told otherwise. The final and major issue is the thesis. This will be the second paper where my thesis has not be clear as told my a writing coach. A thesis is the theory or main point of a paper and again, I have confidence that is it there and it is clear, but apparently it’s not. Though I loved writing this paper I feel like I have taken a second gut when trying to do just as I am told and find that is not quite there. 

            One thing that I have noticed the deeper we go into these social issues it that the deeper into we go and the more information we plug in, the more my mind has to work and think of things that also would make an impact on my stance or something that may back my reasoning up even more. The purpose of this is particular essay still remains as it was with essay one, but an added purpose to show teenagers to branch out and become who you are without media, any media. When Amy said to go deeper, she’s pretty much saying ‘use your brain’. She has also said that our view points and stance may change and we may not feel the same way at the end of all of our writing. I can see that happening for a lot of us when we needed to concede in what the interviewee says, we had to back up why we didn’t agree. A lot of the time when I was typing out my reasons, I sat back and thought what my mom is saying makes a lot of sense and that’s where the go deeper part came to play. I would really have to think on how a something would play out if I were to agreed and move on, what would the pros and cons of that? This essay was tough but fun and I want to continue to grow and learn from these experiences. 

Instructor Amy Doty

ENGL1010

17 September 2018 

Reflection Essay IV 

            That feeling you get when you have thoughts and ideas and a good sense of what is right, then when it comes to fruition, its euphoric!  Essay four was the icing on the cake. We took an idea or a stance on an issue, got a opposing point of view by a personal interview, argued why the viewpoint of someone else is wrong from our stand point and finally we got were able to seek resources to prove our point in the end. 

This essay was by far the easiest that I have done this term. The reason I feel this way, because it wasn’t started from scratch much like the others. I felt very comfortable with critiquing the third essay and adding resource information and go deeper than I have gone to show, ‘I know what I’m talking about’. The only difficulty I saw was when I got an article or document to use, how to sift through and select only the important facts and information. I chose topics that related to the different reasons I had behind my stance, the most credible I found was a TEDxTalk. I am not sure if I was able to relate more to because it was me listening and plucking useful information instead of reading and annotating the information. Either way the video made a lot of sense as to what I was trying to say as far as social media having an effect on your mental health.

            Though most of my scholarly research was confirming a lot of my reason on why being addicted to social media can be detrimental to socialization in the future. I found a grand number of articles of the opposing viewpoint similar to what my mother was saying in my interview with her. There were times where I felt my thesis wouldn’t be relevant if I added such information, and pretty much steered clear of that information simply for my assignment. It could have been a bad idea on my part to not concede in those times, but I thought it was way too late in the course to change everything around. Like almost everything in the world, there is always going to be two sides to a story I decided to stick with my side, when all is said and done I want to advocate for those teenagers that suffer from behaviors, bullying, physiological growth issues and, anxiety and depression behind being plugged into social platforms because I will be able to speak from experience. There is no greater educator than one who has experienced something and overcome it. 

Instructor Amy Doty

ENGL1010

19^th September 2018 

Final Reflection

            Most writers or English teachers in high school or college will argue that there is no such thing a good and bad writer. The terms good writer or bad writer are in the eyes of those who read. Some can read a passage that may have been written quickly and without effort and think it is brilliant work and very well said. Others may read a passage and think that the author is a complete idiot and has no sense of English literature. When I began writing the personal narrative, the first writing assignment for this term, I try to think of the reader as a person who can read between the lines. I am by no means a formal writer, but I know the gist of it and how I can make any assignment my style of writing. My writing journey in this class was nothing short of a rollercoaster.  

            From beginning to end my emotions and techniques were spit balling out of control, it amazes me how from the first week til now when I think about an assignment I don’t even panic any more. When I started off with an essay, I would have such a fantastic idea on how to do something but not a clue on how to execute it. I would open my laptop and throw up words and ideas on a document before I knew it, there were two pages of chaos on my computer. It was until the middle of essay two where I began to feel okay about what I was doing. Having feedback from peers in the classroom and from a writing tutor gave me a lot of good constructive criticism as well as praise, it also showed me the kind of readers these people were. Often I found myself getting angry with the writing coaches and tutors because they seemed judgmental about my work. But I knew I had to sit back and reflect on what they were saying because they are only trying to help and that’s what I was asking them to do. When we go to the tutoring center or submit a paper via smart thinking, there are specific things that we have to ask for help with. Since I knew I have issues with organization and making a solid thesis that is what I would specifically ask for. Getting the assignment back and they have a small amount of annotations of my thesis and organization, along with an entire paper of telling me, ‘this doesn’t make sense’, ‘what are you trying to say here?’ is quite discouraging. So one day, excuse my language, I said “fuck this”, I knew what I was trying to say and my peers get my ideas so I did not change anything about my essay, that being said…I got an A.

            Some major take a ways from English 1010 is the text book. I really enjoying reading on excepts and essays from others, not only to see their writing style but so see their views and in a certain situation. I also enjoyed summary and response. People may think it’s odd for me to like something so small compared to everything during the class. My reasoning behind that is, I was horrible in high school when it came to reading comprehension. I would open a book, read the words but no idea on what I was reading. I would get lost and my eyes would start to cross, or I may start to think about something that absolutely no relevance to the novel I had in my hands. So yes, I was very excited when I realized I can give Amy a synopsis of an essay and her and classmates, can get a clear picture without having to read it for themselves. That is a major achievement. 

            Now I want to tell you what really and truly brought the best out of me in all of my writing assignments. Amy. I have never had a teacher or instructor with such knowledge and passion about English and composition. Her vocabulary is astounding, and very well spoken. When she is talking about something specific she wants from us or what she has experienced in her past I get totally tuned it. Not only do I think she is composition genius, she’s the most helpful and understand teacher I have had thus far, and that goes for all of my days in school. Meeting with Amy during office hours and being able to get feedback from her through email is what saved my ass in this class. I have thought dropping this class maybe 108 times without her knowledge but still she brought me back to reality, plus I need this class for my degree 😊 She also is resourceful and lead me to a program to get some awesome financial assistance for school. I’m positive Amy would do this for any of her students, I just want to give credit where it is due. Don’t get me wrong, in no way am I trying to be a brownnoser it just so happy that Amy the shit. 

            I have no reason to take English composition II, but I am pretty sure that I will down the line. I have a lot of work to do and I enjoy writing things such as journal entries or short stories about my previous experiences and I want to improve because I never know what I will need it for. So, farewell English 1010, it’s been real.