SWA#1

Amanda Youngblood
English 102 Section 111
10 January 2012
SWA#1

Previous Writing Experiences

My English 101 class was a specialized class reserved for Capstone scholars. The title of the course was “Mark Twain to Modern Twitterature”. We read and discussed various examples of writings by various authors. We also discussed how culture and dialect affected an author’s writing style.

For the first two papers we wrote, we had to choose and analyze two separate essays by different authors. When writing the first paper I focused on the aspects and style of the essays and used that information to argue which essay reinforced the main point in a more effective manner. On the second paper, we had to choose two essays that focused on the same topic and compare which one better outlined the central topic. I chose to analyze two essays that discussed the issue of profanity. After the first two papers, we shifted our attention from comparative essays to focusing more on the analytical aspect of writing.

The third paper I wrote was to analyze a song. I chose a hit country ballad from the 1970’s. In that paper I explained the elements of the song that made it a ballad and also the elements of the song that made it incredibly popular with its audience. The fourth and final paper we looked up controversial issues that related to language usage and an article about that issue. I chose to look up an article about language and education. I proved how appropriate communication and language use with students and parents is key to providing students with a good education by reading this article and researching the topic. I was very happy with how my final draft of this paper turned out.

The best writing experience I’ve had would probably be putting together the final drafts for four papers for my portfolio for English 101. This gave me the opportunity to prove what I had learned throughout the course and use it to correct papers I had written before my writing skills had improved. It was also a way to demonstrate my improvement. The worst writing experience would be the majority of my high school assignments. Teachers I had did not focus on writing enough and because of that, my writing suffered. I believe the chance to improve that writing in my portfolio affected me the most because it was a chance to redeem myself from years of bad writing in high school.