Reflection On Writing 121

Honestly, I was less than excited to take this course. Writing 121 is a requirement for all Oregon Associates transfer degrees so it wasn’t like I chose to take the class for my own sake, and being alone having recently moved to Eugene assured me that I wasn’t going to find any familiar in the classroom or on campus at all. It’s not like I expected the course to be a breeze, but it sure didn’t seem like anything special. Having to announce my name change to the whole class wasn’t fun either, in fact it just reminded me of the reason I dropped out of high school in the first place. Oh, and the textbook looked old: 2002 was fourteen years ago. It didn’t even take me one class session to ask myself: “is this all really worth it?” Though, in the same moment, I remembered why I was sitting in that classroom at all, that there were people counting on me to set a good example for their program and that I was privileged to be able to attend college at all when I know it would have been nearly impossible in North Carolina. I …show more content…
Although I am far from perfect, my understanding of style has grown in leaps and bounds. My conclusion sentences were almost always weak and my introductions were mostly uninteresting. In my first connection essay for Jeffrey Harrison’s class I end with: “Leaving the readers to wonder how he is connected to the story, if he experienced what Panchito did, or if he has heard the voices of many people that have.” (5). In comparison my most recent connection essay closes with this short sentence: “What difference are we choosing to make?” (7). As one can see, the most recent closing sentence is engaging to the readers while the older closing sentence leaves the essay feeling unfinished and without any sense of closure. I learned that stories and poignant statements make great introductions as opposed to the standard short background on the subject with a (hypo)thesis at the end of the