Over the course of the semester, I have enhanced my writing skills. At the beginning of the semester, I aimed to improve on both word choice and transitions. I often felt that my writing felt too informal and wanted to develop a stronger voice using more sophisticated words. I was able to achieve this goal by finding alternative verbs, adverbs, and adjectives to use. This method of finding alternative words was also the change I made to have smoother connections throughout long writing pieces. Before this semester, I noticed that my writing would have incoherent ideas and would often “jump” from one idea to the next without a proper transition. However, after the in-class practices of moving and rewriting sentences, I was able to see a major difference in the flow of my writing. Overall, I have been able to make progress in becoming a better writer over this semester.
The piece that I am most proud of is my literary narrative essay because I liked the flow and transition of that essay the most. I also really like my introduction paragraph of that essay; although it was not necessary, I was able to include some statistics into the introductory paragraph. I did initially struggle coming up with a topic for that essay but I did not have any major struggles aside from that. Rereading that piece now, I noticed that there are some changes I can make to create an even more interesting piece for the reader. Aside from that, I was also able to see how much I have improved as a writer since the beginning of the semester.
The piece I found most difficult was the rhetorical analysis essay. I was often conflicted with the overall flow and transition of that piece. I struggled with the organization of the paragraphs and the writing process in general. There were many requirements to that essay and, therefore, I found it overwhelming. Looking back at that piece now, I am surprised that I was able to complete it and I am somewhat satisfied with my end result. I definitely think I could have had a better paper if I rewrote it.
In general, I have seen significant progress in my writing and I really enjoyed this class. I liked how the class was oriented around making us better writers as opposed to a class full of writing assignments with no feedback or advice to help us improve.
I also very much liked the narrative essay, its not everyday you get to write about yourself