Since the freshman year of high school I had to fight for a “B” in most of my English classes. Prior to moving in US I lived in Ukraine for 11 years, so English was already my fourth language after Russian, Ukrainian, and German. While most of my classmates were writing their assignments in 2-3 hours, I had to find words in the dictionary and seek the help of my step dad. Finally after getting through high school I decided to take English 101 during the Summer Transition Program at Virginia Military Institute. My English 101 teacher, Mr. Hamilton, helped me to improve some of my weaknesses in writing. While analyzing most of my writing assignments from English 101 I have noticed improvements at structuring sentences, writing multiple drafts, and thinking creatively, but I still need to improve my grammar, punctuation, and thesis emphasis. This detailed analysis helped me setting specific writing goals that can be achieved upon completion of ERH-102 class.
On one of the first lectures Mr. Hamilton put an emphasis on importance of writing multiple rough drafts. He also stated that a first draft supposed to be bad, and I should just begin typing sentences on the computer without filtering any of the information. Previously I used to spend hours in front of the screen thinking how to start my first sentence. Now writing poor quality first drafts saves me hours for each essay, and allows me to write more creatively. For example, I had to write the paper about a certain genre of music, and I just could not pick one. Finally, I decided to start writing about pop rap, because it was the genre of a song that was playing on my phone at the moment. After 40 minutes of continuous writing I finished my first rough draft and came up with a unique title “(W)Rapping up the Genre”. Not writing down my ideas right away would have resulted in a longer time required to finish my draft and possibly missing out on a creative title. Quickly typing poor first drafts is a skill that is extremely helpful when it comes to writing college level essays.
Another issue that I had in high school English classes was forgetting to write compound sentences. Instead, I just overused periods and underestimated the power of comas and semicolons. I decided to improve at structuring compound sentences on my own initiation, without any feedback from my teacher or classmates. During rough drafts I still write simple structured sentences, and then I combine simple sentences that have a similar context in the final draft. For example, in the rough draft of my “(W)Rapping up the Genre” essay I wrote sentences “Knowing more about pop culture will help you to become more comfortable in casual environment”((W)Rapping up the Genre 1) and “Sometimes you and your friends are listening to music on a Friday night and someone starts a conversation about hot song hits” ((W)Rapping up the Genre 1). While reviewing the draft I decided to combine these sentences into “Knowing more about pop culture will help you to become more comfortable in casual environment; for example, when you and your friends are listening to music on a Friday night and someone starts a conversation about hot song hits” ((W)Rapping up the Genre 1). This compound sentence has a better flaw and is more appropriate for such college level essay. Combining simple sentences seems like an easy but at the same time an important skill that should only be used when it’s appropriate.
Looking through my essay and noticing certain improvements was pleasing, but I also noticed some areas that needed immediate attention. I always felt weak when it came to grammar and punctuation rules, but thought that I saw an improvement during ERH-101. My opinion changed during this analysis, when I saw multiple punctuation errors. For example, I missed a coma before the second “and” in a sentence, “Sometimes you and your friends are listening to music on a Friday night and someone starts a conversation about hot song hits” ((W)Rapping up the Genre 1) This is a very basic mistake, and I might just need to focus more on checking my final drafts, but nonetheless I still need to improve my grammar skills. I even missed a coma before “because” in a sentence, “In this class I also got better at reading complicated text because few times a week I had to read one or two essays about different topics” (Reflection of 25 days 2). This sentence came from my “Reflection of 25 days”, where I praised myself for improving my writing skills during ERH-101. Following proper grammar and punctuation rules is definitely a very serious issue for me, and I need to put more time into carefully reviewing my papers in the future.
Putting an emphasis on a thesis is also something that always troubles me. I always try so hard to make my thesis clear, but I end up forgetting to support it with my other paragraphs. This ends up confusing my readers, when they try to find my thesis based on the evidence in the paragraphs. For example, in “(W)Rapping up the Genre” essay, I started the introduction paragraph with a thesis that described the importance of pop rap genre in today’s society, but in the body paragraphs I ended up going off topic and writing about the similarities and differences of various songs in such genre. This resulted in the confusion of my classmates, when they tried to find my thesis. Now I realize that I need to reread my thesis whenever starting a new paragraph to make sure that it fits in. I plan on using this technique for the rest of my college papers.
Overall, I think that I am an average writer. During the past year I saw improvements in certain areas of writing. I learned to write multiple drafts instead of trying to speed through a final draft the night before the due date. I also started using compound sentences more often in my essays, and I even began to think more creatively. At the same time I still need to improve my grammar and punctuation skills in order to prevent simple mistakes when writing compound sentences, and I also need to put enough emphasis on my thesis for the readers to notice it. This analysis helped me to understand my flaws as a writer, so now I need to put in some time and effort into improving myself as a writer.
Works Cited Page
Belousov, Nikita. “Reflection of 25 days.” 2015. Web.
Belousov, Nikita. “(W)Rapping up the Genre.” 2015. Web.