Daysi Rosales

Professor Corri Ditch

English 115

09 December 2019

The Growth Between Highschool and First Semester of College

In college, writing an essay is like writing a book or an article that is pages long.

Professors require 8 pages or so while you high school AP english teacher rarely made you write

any essays but just made you read books. Nobody seems to prepare you for what college may

throw at you as a freshman. For me, my professor built up the writing and helped us along the

way. Professor Ditch gave us Project Space then Project Text which will prepare us for our

future English courses. The amount of articles and pages to write gradually built up, preparing us

for the next assignment. My writing has improved this semester in terms of transition sentences,

stronger evidence, better analyzation and creating a stronger thesis/argument. The learning

resource center and the grammar lab have helped me realize what writing flaws I need to be

looking out for myself.

Making my transitions from one paragraph to the other would be so hard for me until a

tutor in the resource learning center. The tutor showed me that the transition between two

paragraphs has to explain the main idea of the first and the main idea of the following paragraph.

In project space my transition from the first paragraph to the second was “data, interviews or

personal experiences to affirm their arguments, and explain what happiness is and how one could

change in their life to achieve it.” to “The internal space is described in the article “The Sources

of Happiness” by His Holiness…” (Rosales, Project Space) I believe flows better than it did
before given that now it connects both paragraphs with the topic of internal and external spaces

that are explained in the essay.

Not only was transitions one of my less stronger parts of writing but analyzing and

finding data that asserted my points was hard for me to do. Analyzing text for me seems hard

because of getting into the authors thought and what they are trying to explain to the reader is

tedious. I believe that everyone has their own ways of viewing text and interpreting it, which just

makes it even harder, but actually it's the way you use date which makes your analyzation and

argument strong. In project space I stated “have…appreciate everything more”( Lama and

Cutler, 21), illustrating that though bad things happen in your life, you can always change your

perspective and make them positive with the way you perceive it” (Rosales, Project Space) This

quote making the statement of my analyzation and the level it is at now. When I graduated

highschool analyzing text was just something I found impossible and now it might just come

naturally as thoughts I have about the text.

Another part of my writing that has improved is creating a stronger thesis/argument.

Going to the resource learning center and writing essays that require me to write arguments that

came with counter arguments and refutations helped me develop a better thesis. I learned that

creating a thesis is about answering every part of the question prompt. For project text it took me

countless tries until I finally got the thesis I wanted. I stated “George Takei went through the

physical and emotional suffering that brought him to know what to really value in life, what to

call happiness, and how one person could change to be the better one desires to see in this world.

Takei is now an activist and a leader to his people, helping them and motivating them in any way

possible.” (Rosales, Project Text) Realizing how much stronger my thesis is compared to how i
started in the beginning of the semester is quite satisfying. In the beginning I would not even

answer the prompt and just state arguments that didn’t even have anything to do with my prompt.

Completing the first semester of college writing was quite challenging. Writing pages of

essays and learning formats that students do not really use at in highschool was all new itself.

The demand for a clear thesis and analysis that is asserted with quotes from the text was the most

challenging of all. I have improved this semester by overcoming those challenges and learning

how to create a stronger thesis/argument that is asserted with evidence from text, analysis and

have also improved in making a transition from one paragraph to the other. These two projects

have helped me develop a better idea of what is expected for me to do as a college student and

made me grow as a writer.

 Work Cited

Rosales, Daysi. “Project Text” , November 27, 2019

Rosales, Daysi “Project Space”, October 1, 2019