English 111 Reflection

Writing is much like math, through the practice of rules and accepted guidelines one is able to improve their abilities in their desired subject. Learning the fundamentals such as grammar and transitions are irreplaceable in your writing repertoire. English 111 began with focusing on these principles of writing. The more accustom I was to applying my newly learned rules of grammar; the more familiar and accessible they were in my writing. Thus this made my writing flow more easily. This ability allowed my writing to have more clarity and my thesis statements to become more specific. By mastering the basic concepts of writing: grammar, thesis statements, synthesizing of paragraphs and topic sentences, I was able to sophisticate my writing and

Whenever I wrote essays, I almost always wrote my topic sentences as a statement of fact. As my writing advanced through the year, my topic sentences became more specific and more reflective back to thesis statement. For example, in my first essay, the first body paragraph begins with “My grandparent’s house is only a ten-minute drive from the house I’ve grown up in.” The comments to this sentence were “SOF, How might you make this more descriptive of the idea.” This topic sentence was a simple statement of fact that didn’t reflect back to my thesis at all. It also didn’t serve as a mini thesis for my paragraph. With more practice writing topic sentences, my writing skills began to improve. This improvement was shown in my third essay. In my first body paragraph in essay 3, it began with “Charlotte’s insanity and concentration on the yellow wallpaper represents the guilt she feels for not wanting a domestic life.” My professor’s comments to this topic sentence is, “Better! Now work to make your language here even more specific.” I am very proud of the transformation of my topic sentences. As my essays developed, my topic sentences became more specific and less statement of facts. This allowed me to create a well-constructed roadmap throughout my essay, a skill that I struggled with for years but now finally