Ever since, I came to the
United States over ten years ago from South Korea, I always dreaded the class
that forced me to write in an unfamiliar language. Even after I mastered communication
after considerable amount of time, writing entire essays still proved to be a serious
challenge. However, as time went on, I gradually acquired more writing skills
and I even started to enjoy some of the writing assignments by the end of my
high school career. Nevertheless, there have been many ups and downs in my
writing experiences, but I believe I have done well to make it this far and I
look forward to seeing how much I can continue to improve.
The writing experience I consider
the best is the time I had to write a review on a recently opened restaurant. I
had to describe not only the food, but the atmosphere, and so on. Therefore, I visited
“Strange Donut,” a doughnut restaurant and I knew I immensely liked that place.
It was interesting to analyze exactly what it was that made me attracted to
that restaurant and tell others about it. Overall I did well on that assignment
and it still remains one of my favorite.
At the bottom of my list of writing assignments
is not the one I had the worst grade on, but the one I found to be tedious and
repetitive. One day, I had to write about a research paper on human experimentations. I always felt like I was repeating what someone else
already said and therefore did not make any new contributions. Sometimes I even had
to resist the urge to do exactly that by copying what
was on the internet because
it did not seem that much worse than paraphrasing it. This was not a type of writing I enjoyed.
The assignments I found to help
me the most has to be all the analytical essays I wrote based books such as The Great Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird. I was instructed
to evaluate the author’s main message and themes as well as the purposes of each
literary device. They all helped me raise my analytical skills. However, the
reason they were the most beneficial to me is because I learned to read between
the lines and explain the meaning behind them to others. It was fun and educational.
I hope to do more of this in this class as well.
On the other hand, I had
to struggle a lot with poems. I had to analyze the uses of literary devices and
interpret the different convoluted meanings behind not just the phrases
themselves, but behind every breaks, sounds, and even letters. I am usually
very good at finding hidden meanings and deducing what was inferred in the texts,
but poems were different to me. I didn’t know what to look for, and sometimes
even what I was supposed to do. It was one of my more shameful moments in
education.
Thus far in college, I’ve
had trouble adjusting my writing style to match the expectation of my
professors. I have only taken one writing class in college before and I did poorly
on it as I admittedly was unmotivated and had trouble following directions. I was
expected to advocate a cause and make compelling arguments for the changes I
wanted to see. However, it was different from my high school assignments in that
I had to utilize all of the researches I’ve done in the past to write this one
essay. This was hard for me as I struggled to connect all of the past works.
All in all, the writing
courses I’ve taken helped me be a better critical thinker and know what I liked
and disliked. I believe my work has let me grow more clever and astute.
I had sort of the same experience, although i was born and raised here I moved overseas for most of my life as a young child. So I know what it is like. Even in college I still struggle with my writing. Don't be too hard on yourself. You aren't alone. We all have the same objective, and that is to become better writers.
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