Midterm Assignment: 3/1/12

Dear Kyle,

College is great. I am loving the friends I have made and not only that but my classes. I am taking English 1102 with Ms. Ingram this semester and so far it is going very well. I just wanted to let you know that English has never been my strong suite but so far this semester, I am enjoying it and have actually been able to improve my writing. I gained the confidence I have needed to write, learned who my audience is and how to write to them and finally I have been able to improve my drafting skills when writing different pieces.
In high school, I just wrote because I had to. I never had the desire to free write or write in general. It was never fun nor did I have the time to do it. This semester after writing my first assignment, What is it like to be you, I had gained a ton of confidence. I had Ms. Ingram last semester and I enjoyed her class and teaching style and I felt I gained the most out of her lessons that I decided to take her again. After she read my second draft, she had stated, "This has been your best writing piece yet." Not only that but she also gave me great feedback stating that I am now understanding and writing like a writer should. This just gave me a boost of confidence that has allowed me to improve my writing and engage in my writing rather than just put words on paper.
When writing a paper, do you consider who your audience is? I didn't, well not at first. While writing our second assignment, the research paper, we had to initially find sources and write annotated bibliographies. In high school we were told to take quotes from your sources and put it in the essay. Because our teachers made us use hundreds of quotes, basically the quotes wrote our paper for us. That is definitely the wrong way on how to write and cite a source in your essay. Because of that, we didn't know how to write or who we were writing to.We just didn't put two and two together. I have fixed that by going in through each source, reading it, taking notes on it and from that I am able to see what side or viewpoint of my topic I would write about. It also made me change my inquiery question a few times as well. This gives me supporting details and has enabled me to see who I am writing to. Writing annotated bibliographies has helped me better understand each source in detail. I have to actually read it, rather than skim and pick out like we did in high school, and it gives you more detail that you can include in your essays.
Finally, writing multiple drafts have helped me with writing my papers. Not only that but peer editing has helped as well. Remember back to high school when we just wrote a rough draft and a final draft? Well, that was wrong. Here in our class, though it sounds like too much work, we write multiple drafts. So far, I have written 2 drafts for my What is it like to be you essay and I feel that I still could use more drafting. I have learned to write cover letters which helps you take apart your draft as a whole and help you realize what you might need improvement on. Peer editing has given me the support I need to better my writing. Jamaal and Krishna have both helped me gain different perspectives and where to put in more detail. Because of this, I am getting multiple opinions rather than just the teachers thoughts and advice. We are all in the same boat and have learned a lot through this.
Ms. Ingram's 1102 English class is a fantastic way for you to improve your writing skills. Whether you hate writing or not, by the end of the semester you are going to love it and be a professional writer. It is fun and engaging and it works. I just sounded like a work out commercial. But really, take this class and you too can work on your weaknesses. Don't let the weaknesses eat you up, but rather fight them and over come them and you will write like a pro.

Anthony

What is it like to be you essay was definitely a broad topic and because of that, it made it a little tricky and difficult. There were so many avenues I could have explored about who I am. I could have wrote about my personalities, my past, or anything else for that matter. When we got the assignment, I initially though, this is crazy, why am I going to tell a stranger about my life. This essay turned out to be fun. I was writing to those who wanted to know more about me and my background and from that I was able to brainstorm and pick which avenue I wanted to write about. I thought it would be a little difficult to talk and write about my past history to strangers, my peer group that I knew nothing about, but after writing it, we began to know each other a little better and brought us together and made us friends. This paper we had to write our first draft by hand and I didn't like it that much. I felt that I had left off a number of points that I included in my second draft mainly because I was tired of writing. When typing my second draft I was able to go back and include points that my editing group had made and was able to tweak parts to make it sound more professional rather than just a kid writing about his past. My greatest accomplishment about writing this was the cover letter. Starting English 1101 I had no idea who to write one and after starting 1102 I still didn't know what I was doing. Soon to find out, after my feedback from Ms. Ingram, I do! I do know how to write a cover letter and talk about what I did and didn't do and how to improve it and ask questions to my group. For my final piece I will improve my grammar and sentence structure along with increasing my vocabulary a little and try to make it a little more older sounding. My vocabulary range isn't very broad so I need to expand on my horizon and try to explore new words. I think this piece made me learn who I really am and how I became that way. It made me appreciate the young man I have become and know that it was all because of my loving and supporting parents. I think my classmates learned that I have a drive to be better than something I'm not and see how determined I am.

Peace, Butter and Jelly was a very different book. I liked it because it gave me a history of David's background, talked about recipes that he has made, and he had wrote a ton of poems. I really liked the poem part because they made you think and some of them were funny. I think it is a good way to start the semester but in my opinion, one who doesn't read a lot, please don't assign as many pages due so soon. I know we are in college but because of my other classes and homework, I was always cram reading and wasn't getting the best out of the book. Maybe that was partly my fault for not breaking up the reading and also us knowing from the syllabus what is due ahead of time but just a thought.

Haiku:

Reading and Writing
has made me grow grey hairs but
I love the challenge.