The End of the Quarter, Essay Example

As we approach the end of the quarter, it is my responsibility to show what I have learned in writing 39A class. During the past 10 weeks, I have put forth my best effort to progress my writing skills and implement the valued lessons employed during my coursework.  As with anything in life, those things worth achieving are worth working for and this course is a springboard to furthering my ability to write and develop a more comprehensive understanding of the materials I read.  Adding specific details, developing my themes and expanding ideas also helped me to achieve my goal of becoming a more informed and skilled writer. The single most important aspect of my writing growth has come from the constructive criticism of you, my instructor.

In the first essay, Close Reading, I learned how to expand my ideas based on your feedback.  Understanding and utilizing your feedback was difficult due to my limited exposure to literary support. With your help, I was able to expand my ideas and also make connections between disparate ideas. For example, in the third paragraph, I wrote about three major ideas including: “a dozen rotating eyes,” “steaming mouth”, and “ever-spinning.” While the ideas could have been separated into multiple paragraphs, I was able to connect the ideas into a smooth transition through the use of your feedback.  I made the connections through increased details of the situation and building the structureof by making connection of the characteristics:‘dozen rotating eyes,’ ‘steaming mouths,’ and ‘ever-spinning’ machines.  Russell exhibits a situation that the machine uses the fear of the workers to force them to produce silk forever.” In addition, I expanded the ideas to bring clarity to my writing.  Such ideas like the first paragraph of Close Reading, I wrote “I,” but I did not refer who “I” was. Therefore, I explained that “I” is Kitsube. I understood that I needed to provide ample information about the subject matter of my writing explain the ideas in order to guide the readers to create the vision I was depicting in my literature. By writing Close Reading, I also learned the correctways to organize my writing.  On my initial draft, I completed a random assortment of thoughts in the limited space of one paragraph.  My ability to process my thoughts and visions down onto the writer word was extremely difficult due in part to my lack of ability to formulate clear ideas, smooth transitions or finalize ideas.  However, after the application of my course education, I was able to begin the journey of clear, concise, and meaningful writing efforts.  Through the process of feedback and revising my work, I developed organization and sentence structure, which was originally lacking in my efforts.  My apprehension of my ability to learn and grow my writing talents have been relived due to the course work and constructive criticism I have utilized.

By writing the second essay and third essay, Vignetteand Critical Essay, I learned how to take advantage of the development of the details in the essays. Adding details is a good way to decorate an essay since details would make the object/person more alive, more real and more personal, also details help readers to picture the situations. I specifically remember the example of the “a young girl” versus that of “a young girl wears a black jacket with glasses,carrying a guitar.” While both are true accounts of the person, one drives a picture into the mind of the reader.  Once I grasped the importance of details, I was driven to apply this to my next effort, Vignette. The downfall of my third attempt was the composition of grammatically correct sentences with details, transitions and clarity.  It is true that the grammar errors could ruin aentire essay by diverting the attention away from the purpose and leave the reader in a state of frustration.

The reading assignments provided the writing examples needed to show what success looked like.  I wanted my writing to utilize the method of showing a certain circumstance rather than strictly telling a description of the idea.  This idea was fortified by reading, Hunting Olivia. The author, Wolves, describes Olivia as water that could be “evaporated” and “rain down” to show that how steadfast and omnipresent Olivia is. “Showing” is more indirect than “telling,” but “showing” would make the reading more interesting and draw in the readers’ attentions.  The course provided many opportunities to grow my abilities and the process of revisions, feedback and multiple attempts to write provided a firm foundation for future growth and continuous improvement.