Tag Archives: Struggles

Dec 4 2015

Learning Through The Eyes Of a College Student

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I feel that my Commonplace blog is a good representation of my academic learning in regards to my writing. Many of the daily post reflect what I have learned from my previous mistakes and their ending result. In addition, I feel that it represents the realization that my writing is improving as the semester continues. To be more specific, my commonplace book shows the improvement in many skills to compose my paper. For example, I had several posts that discussed the importance of having a better structure and the use of examples. These two component were the areas in which I had made a goal to improve by the end of the semester. I think that while I was focusing solely on trying to be better in these areas, I gained some additional knowledge. With this being said, I feel that my commonplace book is mainly about these two topics with small assertions of additional learning moments. Every once and a while there will be a post about the significance of peer review and the different modes of writing accompanied with my personal opinions. I have really relied on the idea of peer review more this semester than I ever had in the past. I found myself learning from others work and their comment on my own work. I believe that the more I had my papers reviewed, the better my grade got. Also, I realized that I had been exposed to several writing modes when trying to better structure and use examples. It is not until now reading through my commonplace book that I truly realized how much learning I have been exposed to.

On the other hand, I feel that my commonplace book doesn’t represent my learning outside of my writing. As a student, I have changed in regards to things academically outside of the writing classroom. For example, I have become a much smarter studier for exams. Instead of studying the night before, I space out my study time. This also links to how I’ve become better with my time management. With joining a sorority and being involved in the Teachers of Tomorrow organization on campus, I have learned the necessity of an organized life.  In addition, I have learned to take advantage of the things on campus that are free and could benefit me in return. More particularly, going to the writing center with my papers has been something that I’ve really valued this semester. I have seen my papers improving in organization after having it reviewed by someone at the writing center. Also, going to the library to study. At the beginning of the semester, I studied in my dorm where there were tons of distractions. By using the library, I am more focused and tend to get things done more efficiently. None of the learning moments discussed above were reflected in my commonplace book. While I feel like it was a good representation of my learning experiences in my writing, I feel it lacked the other areas, subjects and elements of my learning this semester.

My final five tags within my commonplace book highlight my personal experiences and understanding of being a learner in college. The three tags that represent my writing experience is “struggles”, “composition” and “listening”. The tags “struggles” represents the value of learning from my mistakes and there being no shame in starting over or rewriting. In reaction to this, I feel that one of my struggles this semester is composing. The tag “composition” really highlights the many learning moments that focus on building, organizing, and developing ideas into a cohesive paper. Lastly, I feel my “listening” tag really shows how I have valued the thoughts of others. Through out the peer edit comments and use of the writing center, I understand the importance of listening to what others have to say. A part from my learning moments within writing a paper, I have two tags that demonstrate my further learning this semester. The first tag is “different modes”. This tag really explains my experiences where I was open minded, went out of my “comfort zone”, and not being afraid to try something new. The second tag is “analysis” which defines how I have drawn connections between each subject, used examples from my life to relate to topics I have learned, and being able to better explain myself in a more efficient, less repetitive way. Overall, my tags have reflected my learning not only in my writing, but in my general first semester of college.

Sep 21 2015

Literacy Guide Unit Reflection

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I learned many valuable writing techniques, development skills and analysis strategies through out the literacy guide assignment. I started by organizing my ideas and dividing the “must-haves” into each category. Once that was complete, I was able to refer to the previous homework activities in order to find examples to implement in my guide. For example, I used the three charts as a starting point for exploring The New York Times. The most helpful chart in particular, was where we used the “most popular” page to find three articles. I had a whole section of my guide dedicated to using the “most popular” page as a tool for navigating through the newspaper. I was able to use my previous analysis from the chart to expand on my new thoughts with the examples I used in the guide. This showed me the value of taking a specific idea and elaborating. I feel that analysis has been one of my weaknesses when writing so this technique of using my previous work was extremely valuable. While implementing the analysis to my examples, I realized that I was having a hard time covering all the “must-haves”. I had no problem with hyperlinking articles, clarifying a voice, and analyzing the different styles and preferences. What I did struggle with was finding the different article forms and modes that would cover each of the topics I had assigned to topic prior to writing. I found that I would continue to use news reports and multimedia pieces repetitively. I had to rewrite sections multiple times and spend a lot of time searching for the perfect example in something other than news reports and videos. Like with the “most popular” chart homework, I used my previous work, “One topic three ways”, to get a better idea of the different article types out there. At first this chart was helpful, but then I realized it was still lacking the elements I needed. It is at this point in my writing of the guide, I happened to stumble across the times topic page. During my search for the perfect example, this page within the newspaper was able to have multiple modes of information with a click of a button. This initial frustration led to this new discovery within The New York Times. In reaction to this valuable and helpful tool, I was able to create the last section of my guide. This moment was extremely valuable to me because I was able to learn a valuable organization skill through my own mistakes. Out of the entire project, this was my personal favorite learning moment. I learned an important lesson and was able in return to use it to complete the assignment. With this being said, I believe that my advice to myself from this particular writing task would be don’t be afraid to make mistakes and implement these struggles into a unique way in which can be used to complete the task at hand or in the future. Practice makes perfect and rewriting is not a sign of organizational or developmental weakness.

Sep 16 2015

Daily Write: Writing Weaknesses

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My biggest fear when it comes to writing is the process of forming my ideas into an organized and well explained paper. I have no problem creating the points that I want to cover. My only issue is turning these thoughts into sentences with a balanced amount of analysis. I find myself most of the time giving good examples that cover the topic and main ideas. It is the elaboration and analysis of these examples that I struggle to formulate in my writings. In addition to the lack of explanation, I feel that my papers can be repetitive and inarticulate. In conclusion, I feel I am improving, but I still feel I struggle with the idea of creating an assignment overall.

Sep 3 2015

Common Reading Unit Reflection

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Through out this unit, I learned a lot of valuable skills and strategies that will help improve my writing in the future. One of the most important skills I learned was the extreme need to come to class prepared. I had finished the book, The Education of a Lifetime, before the beginning of school which was instrumental through out the entire first unit. I was able to use the homework and class assignments to strengthen my understanding of the book. This in return would help with the very little experience I had with timed writing assignments. I used many new techniques in order to prepare and complete my essay. For example, at my high school we wrote timed essays but we got the prompt the day before and were able to gather our ideas and organize our essay that night. With this writing, I was unable to prepare on the exact prompt but I was able to do some “prep-work” in a similar fashion. I spent the night before the essay gathering evidence and ideas from the previous assignments we had done in class and for homework. I made sure to include a wide variety of examples and multiple ways to use each piece of evidence. With creating different ways to use a single quote, I was able to create a wider range of analysis which could be used for different prompts. With my notes and ideas in hand, I then read each provided prompt. I picked the first prompt because I had the most examples and prior knowledge on that particular question. I felt that having that list prepared prior to class time was significantly helpful. I didn’t have to spend time searching through the book to find the quotes and I was able to chose a prompt quicker and more efficiently. Although this strategy was extremely useful to my writing process, I think creating an outline prior to writing my essay was the most beneficial strategy. I organized the evidence in the order I wanted the paper to flow along with creating a strong thesis. It only took about five minutes to complete and it kept me focused as I wrote my assignment. I felt I had good supporting evidence and my ideas were clear and appropriate for the topic. However, my weakness during the in-class writing essay was forming those ideas into a concise paragraph and fluent essay within the time restraint. I feel I struggle with rambling and re-writing the same idea repetitively. With this being said I also have extreme test anxiety. I found myself getting frustrated and discouraged when I didn’t have the words to articulate a particular idea. In the future, I plan on creating sentences ahead of time to use in my essay. I also will create a time limit per section in order to prevent me from spending all my time on a specific paragraph. Overall I learned many lessons from the mistakes and struggles within this one writing assignment. I hope to use these to improve my timed essays throughout my college experience.