This semester my writing has improved a lot. It is not yet perfect, which is close to impossible, but it has improved greatly. I am able to put more ideas on paper without sitting for about an hour wondering what I am going to write, which is something I did a lot when it came to having to write anything. I never knew where to start or what to write about, even if I did an outline.
I think my organization also has improved in my writing. I have been able to analyze our groups writings and while writing my own, the group questions are in my mind. I am looking while I am writing my own paper for what I should be looking in my groups papers. So, the goup part of this class helped. I also liked where our group members analyzed our papers and gave us feedback. It is hard to critique your own paper. I think that as well, helped improve my writing because a lot of what was found by my group members, there was a greater chance that as I was fixing another draft of my paper that I would have missed what they found for me to fix.
Another way the group work has helped me in my writing is by giving me more confidence. I may think that my paper sounded horrible or that it looks as though an elementary school kid wrote it, but in the groups critiques, there were times when there was not too much wrong with it. Though there is the constructive critiques on the papers, the compliments and what they liked about the paper helped boost confidence. I am able to see that, though not perfect, maybe I was not as bad of a writer as I thought I was.
By doing the blog, it made me have to write. It was not too long, but it gave us the practice of thinking, organizing, and putting it into writing. We also have to remember that other people will be reading our blogs, so we cannot just throw something together to make five hundred words. Our blogs were pretty much like writing a short essay.
The discussion boards was another to have to write every week. We had a question, thought about it and had to write what we thought on what we had read. By having the practice to stay on topic, was helpful. I have a tendency to go off topic when I am writing something, so discussion boards made me aware of having to stay on topic. Because of this, it somewhat forced me to try to stay on topic when writing anything else.
Writing papers has been really hard for me. I can see now that it comes easier with practice. Just by having to write anything every week has boosted confidence, enabled me to write, instead of thinking about it too long, and made me concentrate while I was writing on the topic and ensuring I do not stray.
Writing can never be perfect. Writing is always in a state of constant progress. Similar to what you said, there is always room for improvement. I also believe that practice is a big contributing factor when it comes to writing, although corrective practice is best. Otherwise, someone might be writing, and attempting to write, but it might not be in the right way, such as with organization. For instance, a lot of students have problems with understanding the organization of a paper. They might have their ideas, although those ideas might all be in the same paragraph, and one paragraph can even hold several ideas. Therefore, if a student is not told that there is a certain way of organizing thoughts inside a paper, then they will continue writing in that manner, so that is why corrective practice is best. Without the corrective part their practice will not really make much of a difference. It is truly wonderful that your organization has improved because that is a big component in writing essays, or even a blog. Additionally, I’m glad to hear that you have had more confidence in your writing due to the responses from others. It really is a confidence booster when someone highlights something great in your writing, it certainly does for me.
ReplyDelete