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Abdoul Aziz Seck

Ms Walter

English 1157

05/05/2016

Why I think I can handle 1158.

The semester is finally over and what a long semester it has been. Long not because there

are added days to the calendar than usual but because of the amount of time this class, English

1157, used to consume. From having to read the Ballenger's book due to quizzes passing by the

blog posts to the essays I composed throughout the semester, I have interacted with English

composition in a certain way I never did before resulting in me believing that I am ready for

English 1158.

I haven't read an entire book my entire life. But this class kind of forced my hand. Even

though it was frustrating at times as it used to take me a lot times to even understand a passage, it

paid out at the end. From reading Ballenger's book, I acquired more knowledge about writing. I

for example learned what it meant to write a personal essay from the book. And Laura Zazulak's

"Every Morning for five Years," in which she was narrating his story with a deceased boy she

used to see every day, gave me a clearer idea on how to write a personal essay, who the audience

is and so on. But what made me the most interact with English this semester were the blog posts.

Answering with 200 words to the essays wasn't an easy task. Trying to answer without

having read the essays was an impossible task. It means that the blog posts required a serious

reading of the essays proposed by the teacher. Therefore, more readings for me to complete. And
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by interacting with essays about different subjects and composed by different authors, I got in

touch with different styles of writing. I also noticed how writers hook the audience and how a

transition from a paragraph to another is important to keeping someone reading a paper. All this

new material I learned, I applied to my essays and as a result the grades I obtained suggest that I

learned something.

I received a D the first time I took English 1157 during my freshman year. I even met the

words count requirement just once. Since, I tried my best to avoid English. But this semester was

different. Interacting with different readings during class and for homework inspired me.

Throughout the semester, writing a paper started becoming easier. In a matter of a few hours I

could write an entire paper which used to take me days. I even sat down one day and started

reading the long composition II titled "Green card marriage" I wrote about Cherif's citizenship

history. The paper earned me my first "A" in English ever and it was over 2000 words. After

having finished reading it one day, I even said to myself "Jesus, how did I write that."

My writing improved a lot and I can tell. Transitioning from paragraph to paragraph has

become easy for me, I can cite one passage from my "Green card marriage" paper: But weeks

later he proposed again and this time he proposed to pay her money for a fake marriage after

other senegalese told him how the process works." And I have now a clear idea on how to write

an academic paper. And the last project of the class which consisted of writing a review

introduced me to how to write a research paper which I think English 1158 consists of mostly.

Because of all of these evidences, all I achieved during this semester, I think that I am

ready for English 1158. I also assimilated the rules on how to write an academic paper in MLA

format and most importantly, I am starting to read. Because of having to write a lot of research
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papers in 1158, I worked and will continue to work on paraphrasing during spring break. The

only thing I wish was that I have more free time in order to write better papers.