As I reflect on the last four weeks in UNIV 150, I was able to develop good writing habits that I did not have at the beginning of the semester. The ending of the semester was heavy on assignments to show how we have grown as writers. Checking blackboard frequently helped me stay up to date on assignments. Some of the things that I learn in this class to help prepare me for English 110 are completing grammar practices online, writing journals, and completing essays.

     The grammar practices in the last four weeks helped me work on the small details that would help me succeed as a better writer. One exercise I worked on was sentence structure; I had to rearrange the fragment sentence and use a semicolon or comma correctly. By doing this assignment and reading over my essays and journals, I realize why I marked off points for sentence structure and fragment sentences. As well, I learn how to use singular and plural forms correctly. Once I did the grammar practice for it, I learn saying “them” or “they” is incorrect, and you must specify the group of people. The grammar exercises in class and online helped me become more aware of why I made these mistakes.

      At the beginning of the semester, writing journals was very challenging for me. I could never think of ideas to write about, and it took me longer than the fifteen minutes we had in class. I was very embarrassed by my writings because it had a lot of corrections that my teacher had made. Once I read the reviews and comments, Mrs. Isenkul made me became more aware of the issues I had in my writings. One of my main problems was my papers were informal, and it seems like I was talking, not writing a formal essay or journal. In the last four weeks, writing journals became effortless. I only had to focus on smaller things like using a comma correctly and having enough supporting details on my topics. Writing journals help me practice my writing skills and become more comfortable and confident in sharing my writings on WordPress and receiving reasonable and bad feedback.

      More than that, when completing essays in the last four weeks of the semester, it became very challenging for me. When we were in class, we would do peer reviews at least a couple of times before the essay was due, and not having that structure caused me to slack off and do my assignments last minute. I believe doing peer reviews help me as a writer to learn from other students’ mistakes that they had made in their writings. Having to turn in essays frequently help me progress as a writer by not making the same sentence structure mistakes, and my papers became more organized. I remember the first paper I wrote for this class took me almost five hours to write a four-hundred-word essay, but now I can write a paper in around an hour and a half with little to no grammatical errors.

     To conclude, I believe using grammar skills, having consistent papers, and journals molded me to be a better writer and prepare me for English 110.

Editing Checklist: editing_skills_checklist_1_from_Essay_1(1017)(AutoRecovered).xlsb