How I Feel At the End of Expos
I started this course with a bit of apprehension since I thought I was going to take a journalism class and found myself in Expository Writing. I knew that an expository writing class would most likely require me to do one of my least favorite activities, writing essays. I have never thought of myself as a strong writer in the traditional sense which I shared in my first essay of the semester. But over the course of this class I have discovered that I am not the terrible writer which I once thought I was but rather, I have learned to write an essay without losing my own style which I am actually quite proud of.
My strongest piece was the definition essay on the word �jock�. I found it difficult to come up with a word that had some meaning to me and could fulfill all of the requirements of the assignment. Once I selected the word I was able to make the web and the piece really began to flow. I liked that I was able to get use my sense of humor to clear up some of the misconceptions associated with being a jock. I feel that it was my best piece because I opened up to the reader in defining my opinion of the word jock.
My weakest piece was the argument essay which I wrote on censorship. I feel that it was my weakest piece because it was my weakest effort. I rushed to finish the piece and I was not working my hardest at the time. I do think that I learned about censorship through my research I did but I don�t think I put together the strongest argument essay that I could have or would have done later in the semester.
This course certainly taught me how to write more types of essays than I even knew existed before this semester. In helped me to write my first term paper, which I got an A- on. It also taught me the importance of two critical tools to writing a strong essay, outlines and rewrites. I also think that peer editing was good as long as the peers gave an honest assessment of the piece and it was in agreement with the teacher�s opinion. For example, in my last essay on� How to be Selfish� my peers found the essay entertaining and funny advising me not to change much yet I only received a B- on the piece. The peer analysis on this essay made me confident so I really did not edit very much from the rough draft. Maybe there is someway to consider the peer analysis when grading the draft, just a suggestion!
The downside for me was that I found it difficult to go so quickly from one essay to the next. It seemed like we finished one piece and there was little down time to enjoy finishing the essay when you needed to come up with the next idea. No time for writers block in Ms. Gokturk�s expository writing class.
