Joey Raymond

Post Course Reflection

When I decided to take expository writing I had expectations in mind.  I knew that I liked to write, and was pretty decent at it.  Since I like to write, it flows out pretty naturally so it is not as much work as other classes may have been.  But I didn’t only take this class because I thought it would be easy, I also wanted to become a better writer.  With college essays, speeches, and other future writing tasks, I saw the need to be proficient as a writer.  I expected to be able to write with more style and consideration.  I also wanted to be able to write essays more efficiently and faster than before in the interest of saving myself time in the future.  Most importantly though, I wanted to have a class where I would be able to write about interesting topics without all the side reading.  This course lived up to all of its expectations. 

            I have often been told that I am a pretty good writer by my teachers.  I am usually happy with my work, but before I took this class there always seemed to be something missing.  I could write well, but I felt like I could be much better.  All other classes focus more on reading, and less on writing, so my writing skills never really improved as much as I had hoped for.  In this case, expository writing is a perfect example of practice makes perfect.  With a heavy concentration on writing, and constant practice via the numerous essays and writing homework assignments that are always graded and critiqued with such scrutiny, I have been able to weed out many of my former writing flaws.  One very helpful part to that were the peer editing sessions.  Instead of being told to finish a  paper, and getting a grade back, I was able to not only see what I was doing wrong so that I could fix it, but I could see what other people were doing so I could use it for my learning experience.  I feel as if I am a much better writer after taking expository writing. 

            Another issue that this course addressed was the mastery of being able to write a good essay in a short amount of time.  Since we write essays many times in a week, and all we do is write, write, write; I have learned to write my essays in a much more expedient manner.  I used to be able to write well, but it took forever for me to write anything.  I would sit in front of my computer for hours trying to get one essay done.  Now that we write so many essays, it has become a necessity to write faster.  By the end of this course, I can now sit down and finish a pretty good essay in about 25 minutes or so.  This makes it so much easier and more manageable as a writer.  Instead of worrying about essays, they are usually the easiest part of my homework for a night.  Without taking expository writing I would probably be a pretty slow writer for the rest of my life. 

            The best part about expository writing is that you are given broad topics, but there is so much room for creativity.  The broad topic makes it nice because there is no need to spend a lot of time thinking of a topic, but it also allows you to have fun.  Although the whole class is assigned the same topic, each student writes about something completely different.  This has taught me to think outside the box.  When we are assigned an essay to define a word, it would be easy to simply pick a word and define it, but it is so much more fun to mess around with it.  I can see myself using this in the future because I will be assigned many essays that at first sight may seem boring, but maybe I can put a new twist on it.  Not only did expository writing teach me a lot about writing skills, but I was also able to have fun with the topics. 

            I have taken many different types of English classes over the course of my learning career, but this class was unique.  No other class has completely focused on writing instead of literature and what not.  I found this very helpful because being a good writer is a huge step on my path to future success.  Although it is a lot of work writing essays so frequently, it becomes easier and easier and I got better and better.  Towards the end of the class, some of the essays were even enjoyable to write.  Expository writing was a great learning experience, and I was even able to have a little bit of fun with it.