Mills 1

Brianna Mills

Professor Whitener

EN 1o2

18 April 2023

Brianna’s Writing Journey

As the semester began, I figured I would be very prepared for this course due to
me taking EN 101 the semester prior. During the first day of classes, as there was an
explanation from Professor Whitener of what this semester would consist of, I
realized I had to tune into my creative mindset. All of the papers I wrote this semester
would come from a topic of my choice. I am not a very creative person, or someone
who can come up with something interesting to talk about, so I knew I would be faced
with the challenge of picking an interesting topic for not only myself but also for the
readers.

From the beginning of the semester, I feel as though personally as a writer, I

struggled in many ways and I also gained many strengths. The few points where I
struggle as mentioned earlier is my creativity point of view. I have a pretty bland
mindset at times, which makes it hard for me to be expressive and show creativity
throughout my work. I believe as I went on throughout the semester I was able to gain
a sense of expressing my creativity more as I began to talk about topics that were
interesting to me such as community service. Being able to share my own experience
while giving information about an experience I feel as though everyone should try was
an interesting way for me to express myself towards that topic. I feel as though I was
able to gain some confidence in myself as I wrote about a topic that interested me, I
was able to show my passion for that certain topic which is why I enjoyed writing that
paper as much as I did.

A few differences in myself that I see in myself that I may not have noticed in
the beginning of the semester would be the way I construct and organize my papers. I
tend to focus on the flow of the paper making sure that each paragraph supports one
another and that it is understandable to read. Another difference I have noticed in my
work would be that I tend to focus on topics I can relate to or am interested in so that
my work is authentic. An example would be my argumentative essay about community
service. I have been doing community service since 9th grade of high school. I was
able to express my experience while advocating why other high school students
should get involved in this service throughout their community.

Something I hope to achieve in my future as a student, would be to maintain

everything I have learned throughout the 101 - 102 EN courses for my future work as a
student writer. I also would like to achieve the goal of being consistent with my work
ethic which will help me with my future work career. I tended to be sure to use the
feedback given to me by my classmates for my draft essay to remodel and add changes
to the final draft which helped me throughout this course.

Overall this course has impacted me more than I expected. I was able to gain
knowledge, skills as a writer, and techniques that could improve my writing better.
Not only were my classmates helpful throughout this semester, so was my professor. I
never struggled with confusion on what was expected from me as a student.