At the beginning of the class, my writing skill was poor. Through the class, I have learned how to organize my thoughts and putting them down on the paper in order, how to develop my story by following a coherent structure, how to write in a different style for a different purpose, and how to words cite in MLA format correctly to support my writing. Besides the writing skills I have learned in this class, I really enjoy the course materials that have helped me understand the different learning process.
Also, by doing the essay peer reviews, the review guideline instructions even enhance my skills more. I worked on all of these skills as writing every paper. It’s not that I cannot get my thoughts as I start to write. It seems as though when I am writing, all my thoughts rush into my head at once. So, before I begin to write, I write down all of the possible thoughts I could have on the particular topic I am writing on. Then I can go on to make a first impression by laying out a thesis statement and listing out several elements that I will be focused on to grasp reader’s attention. I want to mention that the book “100 ways to improve your writing” gives me a great help on how to organize and put my thoughts on the paper beautifully. As to the organization and development skills, I tried to use sentences in a logical manner and follow a definite plan for development. Every sentence used is referred to the central thesis. Also, in supporting my central idea, I provided adequate evidence and details and gave the explanation for example.
I really like the course material such as John Berger’s “Way of Seeing”, in which, not only he opens the door to the visual cognitive theory to the public, indeed, he raises awareness of the importance of critical thinking. I have never given a thought of college learning before, especially in my home country. The education system in my home country is still the old school style, which is like all the time the teachers are teaching, and the students are just simply copying what the teachers’ answers. Students memorize the knowledge from teachers without any brain power processing. In this way, it seems those “hard studying” students get good grades by memorizing most of the answers provided. However, in the long run, since our way of thinking has not been systematically trained, we lack the ability to think deeply, and our logic ability has been destroyed. so, we are unable to organize the information into knowledge. Thanks to John Berger’s documentation, which is not only providing an excellent English learning material, it more to me has opened my perspective to the deeper meaning of the college learning. I have learned that critical thinking is not to criticize and doubt each other. It is not only to evaluate other people’s views but more importantly to evaluate their own opinions and beliefs, to help us to think independently.
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Another course material I like is the story “The Fourth State of Matter” by Jo Ann Beard. I never get tired of reading it because it reminds me that we all encounter obstacles in some course of our lives, the only thing we can do is accepting the challenges and move on. I am impressive by how Jo Ann wrote about this beautiful composition by balancing out one and other tragedies happened to her, instead of creating a melodrama. This is the perfect piece of Creative nonfiction writing. In her story, Jo Ann depicts very details of things, uses several symbols such as her dog, some squirrels, a betrayed husband and a dear friend to express her emotion.
As we live in an era without details, commercialization and entertainment are removing details from our everyday lives, our senses and thoughts are occupied by various sensational events, speeches, and scenes. So, we are easily ignoring the mediocrity of daily life and the ordinary life details. Recalling my previous writing, they lacked attention to life, appreciation of things and taste of details. Yet, there is no memory without detail, and the details are very personal and closely related to the human senses. It is the sensible details of an individual that will constitute the texture of what we call history. As today, the ability to use image narrative has also become a key ability of interpersonal communication. The uniqueness of the individual supported and expressed by the image and details is one of the ways towards success.
In the course material “100 Ways to Improve Your Writing”, it notes that reading is one of the ways to improve the writing skills. Reading helps you find inspiration; lets you gain new knowledge; provides you with wider vocabulary, and helps you learn from the expert of writing. Can you imagine an actress who does not watch a movie herself? And a musician who does not listen to music himself? As Steven King, an American author of horror and supernatural fiction said “If you do not have time to read, you do not have the time to write. Simple as that.” (Steven King, 1947). The same question can be asked about not just in writing, but in many fields.
I do think this class has improved all aspects of my writing skill. And more importantly, I think the materials I have learned inspire me the way of thinking.
