My 2016 English Composition Experience

My personal experience in English 111 class this semester was an enlightening experience for myself. I am happy that I did gain some

 deeper knowledge about many aspects of grammar and punctuation that I did not previously have. I have learned also to write better organized papers. Learning about dendrites in our brain, our stages of learning and dealing with what we call musti-tasking, has made this year quite a learning experience for me.

In my early life, I do not recall much about reading specifically in most instances. However, I do recall that at an early age

I did enjoy playing “school”. I would assume the role of teacher first and write out math problems that my students needed to solve. Next, I would assume the second role of student and complete the assigned work. Again, I reverted back to the teacher role and had to check and correct the math work. I did this for a few years, thinking back, maybe my 7 to 11-year old range. This shows that I had a strong desire to be a leader, teacher, and maybe even a desire to learn and gain knowledge. This may be exactly why I love college in my later years.

            This semester in English 111, with Professor Dollieslager, I have indeed learned many new rules about reading critically and writing proficiently. First, I learned about reading, skimming, and taking notes in the Cornell Style Format. Cornell Style Format allows you to have a column on the left for major words and points and the note section to the right of that with explanations and details of that point. The bottom of the note page leaves a space for a summarization the whole page from that day of notes. Secondly, the most utilized learned point I have taken to heart is learning to not use the word YOU all of time when writing an essay. Given that old habits die hard, at my age, breaking that habit and learning to pay attention to it has improved my writing abilities.

            I will be quite honest, I hated reading in middle and high school. I did not complete high school in a normal sense, but I did acquire my GED the same year I was to graduate. I can see now, that missing some of those formative years of learning about English composition, was a detriment to myself. I am lucky in some ways that I do have the ability to devote my free time to going to college now and help my dendrites stay alive and healthy! I was able to study about brain development and how the brain works when it comes to what we deem as multitasking. I realize now, that through science, the brain cannot truly multitask, but switches from one task to another.

            In English 111 this year I have learned a great deal about slowing down, reading critically, and learning to pay attention to key points in my reading. It has been nice to feel like I actually did learn new things in this class. I learned about writing a thesis statement and how to have a hook to lure in my readers. Alas, learning to document and cite your sources was a big deal this semester and I try to do my best in paying attention to that now. Verb tense is also critical in writing and going back to proofread your writings is the best way to double check that the verb tenses are correct and the sentenes flow properly.

Sometimes students go to school and many things are just a recap of already learned knowledge, but this time, I can say it was different. We took the time to also learn about the dendrites we all have in our brain that is the source of our knowledge and memory. The multitasking project research ended up being a real surprise to me as I never expected to learn about the capability of our brains in English class. But well done Mr. D, well done!