Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

From UMassWiki

My Writing: A Work in Progress

Dear Kelley,

I remember in high school I always did pretty well in English class. In freshman and sophomore year I took honors English. In junior and senior year I took standard level two English. I attended Wellesley High School which is notorious for having quite a demanding school system. Since freshman year I have been assigned term papers or research papers ranging in length from anywhere of five to ten pages. I considered my self a pretty decent paper. Coming to the university I have learned college writing is quite different than high school writing. It is more formal and strict. In high school the context was what was the most important, grammar second. In college it is the opposite. This is illustrated in my paper by me having seventeen grammatical errors. I also feel like in college the writing we do is much more specific. The topic is more narrow and leaves less room for opinion and imagination (college in general, not this class per say). I do like writing when it is something that captivates me and interests me. However, when assignments are narrow and leave less room for creativity, my writing becomes very boring and dull I have noticed. I somehow need to find a way to balance this. This particular assignment was very interesting to me. It was broad and big and in summary let me write a paper about myself which showed my identity. I do believe my paper did a good job of this. It shows how important politics is in my life. It is my favorite thing. It also shows my passion for our country and the idea of patriotism. I was trying to display this but did not want to write it out for the writer. I think after getting my paper back I could have somehow left my interpretation about my identity to the reader rather then spelling it out. I also thought my paper followed one the of the five styles of identity writing. I was trying to show how one particular thing has shaped my life drastically. I tried to show how politics has influenced trips I have gone on, internships I have applied for, and jobs I hope to attain one day. It is a vital part of me and anyone who knows me would agree. Reading my paper now, I see how many grammatical mistakes I made. As stated earlier, in High School we didn’t focus as much on grammar as we did context. I think this was a struggle for me and will continue to be so. I will have to work extra hard on my other essays to compensate for my lack of grammar skills. Next time I have questions about my writing I will not hesitate to go straight to my penguin book and look the answers up. I wish I had time to redo my paper because I think I could make it much better. I would most importantly go over all grammatical errors because I have numerous. I also would also write my paper a little more strictly to the assignment and intern show my identity more then saying it. I am currently writing the second unit paper. For this paper I aim to do much better. I am going to follow the assignment more strictly and REALLY try to do better with grammatical errors. I am going to use that penguin book! This was my first paper for this class and was a learning experience. I now know what is expected of me and what I need to do to perform well. Joining this class late and having such a major personal problem has put me at a drastic disadvantage. However, I am hoping to overcome it and have my grade bounce back. It will be a challenge but I think I can do it. With hard work, dedication, and my trusty penguin note book, I think I will be able to demonstrate my writing skills which I do believe are good. They just need some polishing!