I came into English 101 this
semester with no expectations and an open mind. I have learned from past life experiences
showing up is the hardest part. This semester I learned about the dark side of
fast food, I learned how to put my essays in proper format and that being a
writer is about conveying a personal coherent message. I truly lucked out with
the greatest English teacher I have ever had. His name is Dr. Smith and I am not
searching for brownie points or kissing up to him, but I learned more this
semester about writing then in any class I have ever been in.
The book we read this semester was
called Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser and it was wildly fascinating and in
my view a bit depressing. The book talks about the dark side of the fast food
industry from the humble beginnings to what it has become today. The reason why
I say depressing is because I never actually knew about the dark side of what
goes into a McDonalds Happy Meal. Stuff like factory farming, the poorly treated
workers, and the harm it is causing to America by way of advertising, obesity,
and pollution. The upside about this dark side was we as a class got to write
about this in a blog format like I am doing now. This to me was my favorite
part of the class because I got to express myself personally and my views the
way I see them.
Writing in the blog format turned
out to be the biggest learning experience I have ever got in an English class.
Here I was expressing my views and writing what I thought was great and
coherent works on my blog but was really a jumbled mess of ideas not in order.
In the semester we reached mid-way in the class and it was time for the mid-term.
I wrote what I thought was destined for an
“A” but turned out to be “Hey! What are you talking about here?” This is when Dr. Smith said to me “This is
like your writing me a letter “I was told that I had good ideas but my
organization of them was bad. He pointed out to me where my thesis was and told
me to get to it quicker. My mid-term was
about parents are responsible for what their kids eat. Dr. Smith then asked me” why are parents
responsible?” and I are said “because they are the ones in charge” Dr. Smith
then said “that is a reason, expand on it.” That opened me up to learning this
format and how valuable it is.
I love to express myself and write
about stuff I am interested in. To me writing is art and a way to convey a
message. It is a way to share
information coherently and in your own way. I learned a lot this semester with the help of
my peers and my teacher. I think expressing yourself through the English language
is something we all need to become proficient at. There are so many avenues of writing
and to me they are all worthy. If you are writing a biography ,fiction, poetry,
or a letter there is a level of coherency you need to have and above everything
this is what I learned the most this year. I had to learn how to organize and
make what I write about understandable and coherent to the topic at hand.
Having an Introduction, thesis, background information, and reasons are major
parts of writing a paper and is a part of what makes a paper coherent.
In conclusion I don’t know what
type of writer I am or if I have a style flare or an expressive quality for writing.
I do know that I learned the basics of putting together an essay and it was the
first time I ever wrote a research paper. I now know there is a dark side to
the fast food industry and I have learned to put an argumentative essay in a
proper format. I overall learned that whatever you write needs to be understood
and coherent to the people that read it. Then again what do I know I am just a
38 year old student back in college again. There are many ways to write and there is a
lot I don’t know but I am willing to learn. I still have a lot of work to do and I am
taking Dr. Smith’s 102 class in the fall. We will see what happens next but I
do know this much tomorrow is wide open maybe I will write about it one day.
