This course gives many writing activities both in class and online, it also allows students to write in different styles informal and formally well constructed paragraphs. I really like the idea of weekly blog posts, it has been keeping me up to date on reading assignments and it gives me a chance to go into a deeper analysis of the texts I have read. Aside from that, I was also able to see what my fellow peers had to say and what they thought about texts. In terms of in class writing, I believe I should improve on brainstorming and the process of transitioning my ideas onto paper with limited time given. I find it a bit difficult to do since I often come up with many and strive hard to pick one out, by the time I do pick one out very little time is left for me to write it out and therefore my writing comes out to be less organized and at times, rushed. As of the paper, I believe I should work on keeping my sentences in the same tense and review some rules of grammar such as when to italicize and when to underline titles of works.
For Myra, I think you should try reading different papers available online and scholarly articles and look for their thesis as practice. It’s important to get the thesis statement right since all other ideas of the paper depends on it. When developing mini thesis in the body paragraphs they have to somehow connect to the opening paragraph’s thesis as well. As for Diana, I think you should try harder to balance school work and personal life. I understand it can be difficult to do be it’s better to establish a good habit and find the right balance between work and school like while you are still in college.
-Chi Zhang
Writing is actually a hobby of mine and I write a lot during my spare time, but sometimes I get unorganized when I try and get my thoughts on paper. This course helped me improve my writing skills because of how we write our responses on a blog. It allows me to see the other students posts and so I can learn from their writing style and see how I can improve my own. The class discussions are really helpful too. Listening to everyone else’s opinions makes me reflect on my opinion and think on a broader scale, and somewhat alters my outlook on the topic we are discussing. The literature we read is also very interesting because it’s not my usual genre of preference; so these creative pieces are fun to read and explore. Learning the many themes is very useful because it makes it easier to spot themes in other pieces. A problem I have when writing is, it’s difficult for me to come up with a thesis. I have the idea in my head, but when I write it, my thesis statement doesn’t even look like a thesis statement. This is an area I really need to improve on and I feel this class helps in a way that I can understand what a proper thesis statement should be structured like.
A way Chi can improve on brainstorming is writing whatever she thinks of onto paper, then do the process of elimination. Only go for the ideas that are closely related to the topic on hand. Don’t think too much about the ideas you eliminated and try to add it in. Just go with what you have, it’s a lot easier and organized.
A way Diana can improve on doing the readings and writing assignments on time is by pacing herself. All the other things you work on is great, but the best way to get the assignments done is by setting a specific time just for the assignments.
-Myra Khan
I like this course a lot, my favorite time is when we get the whole entire class in a circle and have a discussion about certain themes or topics regarding the reading. The work that we have assigned to read is very interesting and a majority of it has to do with grasping something deeper from the life of the characters we read about. My biggest struggle has been finishing the readings and the writing assignments on time within the past 3 weeks. In my personal life, I have an internship, I do a lot of volunteering for communities on weekends, and once a month I have a huge commitment that I’ve been doing for 4 years with the homeless community. So reading everything thoroughly and creating the blogs posts have been really hard. I’m sure I will do better for the remaining of this class. For Chi, I think you should just pick one topic at the very beginning and just focus on it and you will be able to do better with your time. For Myra, a thesis is a sentence that expresses the idea or ideas of your whole essay. I agreed with what Chi recommended by reading other documents and articles and try to find their thesis statement.
-Diana Rodriguez