Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and

success have no meaning.Benjamin Franklin

Patricia Adele Darby

The Beginning When I started college I enrolled in my mandatory English 101

course. Originally I had thought that this would be just another writing class and seeing as I had gotten through 12 years of those that a few more wouldn’t matter. I came into this course with minimal interest or awareness of technology beyond Facebook and other relevant cites to a teenager. I also was under the impression that everything was to have a rubric, a set few points and a very direct assignment along with a very structured essay impression. Little did I know that my world of English was about to be turned upside down. The first assignment we received in this class was to create our very own blog and write an ‘About me’ post. In this blog post we were instructed to say a lot about ourselves but one thing specifically was to talk a little about our writing abilities as of that point; “I will openly admit that the one thing I am horrible with is research papers, I suppose practice makes perfect but for now it’s just atrocious.” http://patriciaadele.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/all-about-me/) This is something that I think by expanding the way which I write has improved a little although I still have a long way to go. “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” Benjamin Franklin; Throughout this class I did not only grow in my research skills but in a lot of aspects of writing that I will proudly share with you today.

The first step to fixing something is admitting you have a problem.

Our first essay was to reflect on a personal experience and relationship between nature and ourselves (http://patriciaadele.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/environment-essay/ ). “The biggest problem that I encountered was that I had a lot of topics that I could created an essay on using this prompt but the problem was that you told us to focus on a specific event and a specific moment." (Darby, http://patriciaadele.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/the-first-esay/ ). I was focusing on the different environments in my life and the reason for my feeling about my outside environments opposed to my inside environment. I had a great idea on what to write about but I couldn’t figure out where exactly to take my paper as I pointed out in that refection. After finishing paper one and receiving an average grade I went in to see Mrs. Cindy and realized that I was focusing on irrelevant things, Cindy pointed out areas in my essay where I could really have elaborated and painted a beautiful picture with my writing . This essay along with conferencing taught me that I need to take a step back when re-reading my essays and make sure that what I wrote about has meaning and the reader can fully see and understand where I am going. Clarity was lesson number one, and from this essay I realized I had a problem, but was determined to fix it.

Finding the big picture and making connections

Something I have always had difficulty with would be with reading something and making a connection. I have always been aware of this problem but it hadn’t really gotten in my way, that was of course until I came here. In the beginning of class we had been assigned to read a lot of different readings and still they all seemed irrelevant to each other. It wasn’t until essay number two was I truly able to connect writings like I did, and I have to say I am very proud of myself. After writing this essay I had even said “In the midst of writing out the outline for this essay and picking out topics I couldn’t help but almost relate or reference another piece of writing we had read in the class or even back to the movie. Overall I felt this was really a beneficial assignment” (Darby, http://patriciaadele.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/essay-2/ ). I had finally realized how exactly to relate different things and now it was coming naturally. I think some of this growth was due to time and growth in general about making connections but also persistency. I was frustrated that everyone seemed to be making connections about the readings except me and I was determined to make them as well, so with practice and help from the writing center and Mrs. Cindy I was finally able to make those connections. This was my first big step in the right direction with my writing.

Options and Responsibilities For our last essay as students of English 101

we were assigned to write a analysis paper on the movie Wall-E. In this paper I had the opportunity to take all of the things I have learned so far and put them into action. I had a main focus to my paper that I had never had before- “I would like to take a good long look at the different aspects of how this mess no matter what angle taken from is human kinds fault.” (Darby, http://patriciaadele.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/options-or-responsibilities/). I learned through peer editing that different perspectives will only have a positive outcome on your work. I also learned from writing and re-writing this essay that practice does not make perfect, it makes progress. This last essay I felt was strong and well written due to all the different ways I have grown in this course.

Practice makes Progress.Through this entire class I have done a lot of things that I

normally wouldn’t have done. I have learned that being creative is a good way to improve your writing and coming from essay one where I had said “I do not like creative writing at all. I felt as if I wanted to learn how to creatively write I would have taken a creative writing class.” (Darby, http://patriciaadele.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/the-first-esay/ ) to me now saying that this helped is only confirming my growth as a result of not English 101 but from Cynthia Bateman showing me how to become a better writer. I am now able to make a focused claim in any given argument. Make valid connections in not only things that I read but also my everyday life. For example I read so much about environmental problems I was able to point out myself what I was doing wrong and now have a reusable water bottle to make a difference. All of these are great examples of how I have changed over this course but I feel that the most important growth I could have made was my ability to reflect and utilize those reflections. Each time I reflect on writings I then become aware of difficulties and use the reflection to better my work.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

Albert Einstein

Through this class I have grown in many different ways; Learned how to make valid connection, improved my writing skills, and overall became a more focused writer. Although I have improved in many ways I know that I still have a long way to go and I have openly accepted that this journey of improvement will never end.