Week 3 Writer’s Journal

Saturday, September 11th, 2021

Week 3 of College

1. 1. What I did

• • • Took notes for my psychology and business classes
    • Wrote my rough draft for the Literacy Narrative
    • Emailed some of my teachers
    • Filled out the Quarterly Feedback form

1. 2. What went well

• • • My notes for psychology were good enough for me to get high scores on my assignments again

1. 3. What was hard

• • • I have not written an essay in so long, so it took me a lot more time to think of what to write for the rough draft.

1. 4. To-Do List

• • • Read another few chapters for my business class and take more notes
    • Write in the discussion board for my business recitation class
    • Read the notes for my music class
    • Do the Connect homework for my psychology class

1. 5. Where I left off

• • • Reading chapters in my business class’ textbook

1. 6. Feelings

• • • Although it was a holiday and there really shouldn’t have been any homework due on the days off, some teachers still assigned homework and I had to rush to complete them. But other than that, I was able to relax and spend some time for myself. Ever since college started, all I’ve been doing was homework, so it felt good to have a few days where I was not overwhelmed with it the whole time. Overall, it was a good mini break. Also, clubs were starting to hold their GIM meetings. I went to one on Thursday and was able to talk and meet with a bunch of friendly people! It made me really happy!

First off, writing an essay is just difficult for me. I have not done so in a really long time so my writing is pretty rusty. In general, it was challenging writing the Literacy Narrative rough draft just because my skills are lacking. More specifically, what was challenging was using “I” and describing what happened rather than telling. Throughout middle school and high school, all the assignments I had to do were objective analyses of books and lab reports, where “I” was forbidden. I have not used “I” in a paper for so long. However, with the Literacy Narrative assignment, I knew it was more of like a personal story and would have to use first person perspective. So when I was writing the rough draft, I had to remind myself every few minutes to “show not tell”. I am used to summarizing and analyzing information and I know that is not what I should be doing in this case, but I just did not know how to stop doing that. A strategy I can employ to tackle these challenges are to invest myself into the story. The problem is that I cannot stop overthinking and doubting my words and trying to rewrite it as more of an analysis of my feelings. So I need to forget about trying to be objective and just tell the story as if I am telling it to a friend. Do not stop writing and let my feelings take control/take ownership. No thoughts are allowed to mess me up. I am proud of my story and what I have to say, so I should be proving that in my writing. That should help me stop doubting myself using “I” and writing in a “show not tell” manner. A question that remains is is there such a thing as overusing “I”? If so, how can I prevent myself from saying “I” in almost every sentence?