“Teardrops”:

Teardrops is a huge surprise for most of the students in Writing2 for it is such a unique

and inspiring piece of writing. Perhaps none of us thought of translating an academic article into

a horror story. While reading the story, me, as a reader, was so drown into the world that the

writer described and it was surprisingly joyful and fun to read. Academic article is long, full of

details, and it loses readers' attention easily. This story is different, for the readers absorbed

information while having fun. It makes me wonder if there is anything I could do to make my

translation project more fun for my readers.

“Why the five-Paragraph Template Does Not Prepare You For University Writing”:

My first high school class was about writing a 5-paragraph essay with an intro, a conclusion,

a thesis, zero use of first and second person, and three body paragraphs(including three topic

sentences and paragraph transitions). Then I had many extracurricular classes teaching me how to

write TOEFL essays, which follow the same systems except I had to use mostly nouns instead of

verbs or adjectives while writing. Then my entire high school experience trained me to get a high

score on the TOEFL exam, while college writing experience is entirely different. College writing

assignments want personal opinions and multiple paraphrases, and I have no idea how to do this,

especially since I am no longer used to writing with personal feelings involved, for I got rid of this

habit a long time ago. I feel that exam preparation did not help us ready for college, though I cannot

deny that it gave second-language students a certain level of English fundation. I still hope more and

more students can get to know about "genre-specific writing" before they come to college, for not

only they could have more time to prepare, but also they realize the unlimited possibilities in the

field of writing they could explore. 

“Voices of the Next Generation: Comparing and Analyzing Struggles Within Writing”:

Personally, I struggle hard with writing. When I was given a topic, I could not handle it

well. I either end up writing about something completely off-topic, or I am writing down

something that is extremely boring and traditional. I had too much to say that I could not keep

my essay organized and clean, not to mention that I do not have a personal voice in my articles. I

feel like it is wrong to express my personal voice sometimes. Society structured what is right and

what is not appropriate to say. For instance, we should encourage people to live a minimum-style

life to protect the environment in articles, and it is not appropriate to tell everyone to have fun

and live their life as if it is their last day without considering the consequences. (this is probably

not the best example) Therefore, most of the time I end up writing down what is appropriate and

ethically correct instead of what I genuinely believe. Therefore, I wish that I could be braver and

braver while composing a piece of writing, expressing myself freely but still staying in the fitting

genre.