Midterm Reflection

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Cuihua Lin

Hayes

English100 Midterm

3/16/13

Word Count: 955

1) Required Reflection: Syllabus

             At the beginning, before I read the course overview: Reading As A Writer, I think the only thing that we need to do is reading. Then I use the details to write an essay with the knowledge that I learned from reading. However, when I finished reading the Reading As A Writer, I recognized that it was not the same as what I thought.  Reading As A Writer talks about how to distinguish between the content of a work of non-fiction and how to know about a text’s rhetorical situation, which is “combination of context, purpose, and audience.” It looks like they say/ I say pattern which includes difference arguments, audiences, and opinions. Also, Reading As A Writer introduces to how to make the ability to analyze and respond critically to the text. In order to know more about this knowledge, I have read some articles such as “Casinos Aren’t to Blame”, which not only has they say/ I say pattern, but also it has argument for each audience. With this article I learned how to write a critique and respond an essay.

3) Reflection: Writing Process

            To write an essay, I have followed to the professor’s outline that he lists. For my experience, when I read an article, I need to read at least two times. For the first time, I read it roughly, I try to know about what the article talks about; for the second time, I annotate each paragraph when I read. After finishing reading, I usually make a group with classmates so that we can discuss the article and create ideals, which will be easy to organize an essay.  Then I will bring the ideas to write the outline of my essay. To make a clear outline, I will fist to write the thesis and the topic sentences of each body paragraphs. I think that this part is the most important to organize an essay. When I start to write the first draft, I do not care much about the grammar, but I am focused on structure of my essay. To write the second draft, I usually develop and organize my essay because I did not do it well on the first draft. Last, due to having specific paragraphs, I only need to focus on the proof reading of my final draft.

6) Reflection on Essay 2

            For this assignment, I want to share the experience with my writing. Our group chose some articles about “Teens Driving” as our column. We chose this column because it has many arguments, and also it has many common issues around our lives. In my essay #2, I argued the three authors’ articles, and I pointed out that which one is the most effective. In addition, I used they say/ I say pattern and used Toulmin Diagram to analyze each of the columns. After reviewing my essay, I think the finest of my essay are introduction, thesis, and topic sentences because I am in favor of spending more time to write them at first.  However, I feel there is a bit weakness in my essay, which the explanation of some parts of my body paragraph is not quite clear. Finally, I wish I can learn more writing skills from “aims of argument” to improve my following essays.

7) Reflection: Sentence Craft

            I couldn’t say my essay’s sentence craft whether good or not, but I think if I have a clear organization and the development in my essay, it will improve my essay’s value. As an English learner, sometimes I will use Chinese to structure my sentences first, and then I translate it to English.  This situation leads me to make incorrect sentences.  For instance, when I wrote my first essay, I wrote some sentences’ structure are not correct such as “Having the art, our live can be more interesting; having the art, we can express our mind easier.”  This one may affect my draft. Therefore, in order to improve my sentence craft, I will go to the writing center to get help, and I always try my best to memorize some useful and perfect sentence structures. Also, I will learn more how to organize my sentence. I believe, with my hard efforts, that I can write essays by using sentence craft in the near future.

10) Reflection: Writing Process

            In my essay #1, I have a big change between the rough draft and final draft. I learn that I can hook readers’ interest by writing a conversation as my introduction’s opening sentence. For instance, in my rough draft’s introduction, I didn’t use conversation to write my introduction. I only started to write: “My cousin who prefers to draw art even though her parents disagree her to learn to draw. Her parents think that it is not relate to the major that her parents want her to take….. I will list the most common styles of the art.”  After I wrote my final draft, in order to improve my draft for being more specific, I used the conversation to open my introduction. “When my cousin plans to take art major, her parents disagree with her. My cousin’s parents said, ‘You have to take other major like engineering or business because those majors are better for you to get a good life in the future.’ My cousin responded, ‘Art is noble which has a wonderful melody and includes simple of true line. With the art, we can express our mind easier.’” I rewrote this as my introduction that is more interest and can hook readers. This is what I learned from the writing process. With this writing skill, I am going to write better essays.