English Final Essay

Jack Mahoney
English 122
Professor Drown
6/6/19

During my time so far this semester in Enlgish 122, I am fortunate enough to have learned so much about the way I learn. From the first class in September, we have been navigating our way through the basics of the college writing and reading process. Throughout the duration of our class, Professor Drown has stressed the importance of the writing process, and believes that once you can master it, your mindset as a student will change. The writing process we focused on as a class was prewriting, drafting, revising and editing. When I was in high school, I never used the step of prewriting. I thought that it was pointless, and only delayed me from finishing the piece of writing that I was working on. However, once Professor Drown explained the process to me, I found it very useful especially when working on college level writing. I was able to gather information on my topic, such as evidence and quotes and start to picture how I was going to structure my paragraphs. Along with this, having discussions with Professor Drown during the prewriting stage allows the ideas stuck in my head to start flowing which leads to an easier to transition to the drafting phase. When I was younger, I always thought that writing a first draft meant that you only had to write half of the assignment. However, once I got to college, I discovered that I was very wrong. During my first semester of college, I realized that in order to write a successful and complete paper the first draft needs to be the complete assignment that just needs a session of editing before turning in. Doing this allows me to have time to discuss my paper with Professor Drown, and to have a peer editing session with my classmates before turning in the final copy. Revising and editing are two skills within this writing process that I just started using this year. Although I would check my papers in high school for spelling mistakes, run on sentences, and punctuation mistakes, I never actually revised a paper until this year. Professor Drown emphasized to our class that the revision period is one of the most important stages of writing a paper, as you are given the opportunity to perfect your work for the next time you need to do a writing assignment. Once I gained an understanding of the writing process, I was able to improve the scores of my writing assignments in my english class. With Professor Drowns assistance I was able to realize that I actually enjoy writing, and this writing process was the key to my eventual success. As a young writer, I believe there is still a lot that I can improve on. With this writing process, I believe the steps that I need to keep practicing would be prewriting and drafting. Often times in the drafting process, I struggle with the ability to start the assignment because there are so many ideas floating around in my head. Instead of getting frustrated with myself, I believe if I can identify what I want to write about early in the prewriting stage, the drafting process will become easier.