Writing Prompt #5

In what ways do your high school and college writing experiences differ? Explain.

In high school, I believe that writing was a lot easier. I say this only because I feel like in high school writing I knew what I was exactly doing. I had good grades on every single one of my papers. It was nothing less then a B. I also enjoyed writing so much in high school because we had more of open topics. We were able to choose what to write about, for example, school uniforms, keeping or lowing the drinking/driving age, etc…they were fun topics that I could really relate to and enjoy writing about. It seems that every topic clicked into my head just like that. I love writing essays in high school, I felt like I was meant to write well/good. I felt like teachers in high school were trying to prepare me for college life. Since high school was high school and college was/is the real deal. After all, that was their job, right? Well now that I think about it, they didn’t really do such of a good job. Also I believe that teachers were more laid back and did not care as much as they should of.

Now in college, writing seems to be difficult but not as much. Teachers throw topics at you to the point where you would have to sit down and think for quite a while. I feel like I do not understand topics fully. I have to ask the teacher over and over again to make sure I am doing things right. It is like I would think of the topic this way, but really the teacher is meaning the topic should sound like something totally different from what I was thinking. In college, I actually read about writing, for example, I have to read about how to start a paper, end one, etc… from what I recall in high school, the teacher would just explain information to us. In college, we have an actual text book that explains every aspect of writing. After reading assignments, I feel like I could combine my new and old information and know what the author is talking about. I had turned in my first English paper; I thought to myself I do a pretty good job. I know I struggled with the paper a little bit but figured out what I need to do and get done. I turned in my paper know for sure it wouldn’t be lower then a B. I had received a C and it almost brought tears to my eyes. I felt like I did spend a lot of time on the paper and I also know I was having problems writing it. I did seek for help and thought help would make me become a better writer. The more and more I read through my English writing textbook, the more I feel like I will have a better understanding in writing. I feel that college writing will help me a lot more throughout life more then high school. I believe that high school was just preparing you for the little things and not the major writing things. Teachers in college do not give you a bad grade because they do not like you, I guess they are doing this to make you become a better writer. Who knows...

Writing Prompt #6

Describe how you choose your topics and then begin to develop them. How does this process impact the final product? What might be some other ways of developing topics?


When writing an essay, I usually do not get to choose a topic. Lately, I have not written an essay just for the fun of it. It has always been assigned to me by my teachers. But if I got to choose a topic, it would be something I am very well interested in. For example, if my teacher assigned me to write about lowering the drinking age or keeping it where it was at…that would be an easy subject to write about. Considering I am not 21 yet, I could defiantly fight that concept. I think that subjects like this are a lot better and more interesting to write about. I say this because it’s almost like current events and up to date information about our society in general. How I would start this paper…I would ask myself that question, and I would come to about and wanting to choose to write about both, but if all falls and I have to choose one topic, one option, I would go around asking people my age if the drinking age should be lower or if it should be set at 21. I would take the final results of that and start deciding what topic I want to write about. With this topic, it would be very hard to pick what I would want to talk about. For example, I would want to lower the drinking age to 18. I say this because if teenagers can drive at the age of 16 and purchase tobacco and lottery tickets at the age of 18…why waits until 21 to consume alcohol? Also why wait until 21 to gamble? I think that whatever they make legal at the age of 18 should be pushed off to the age of 21 or everything that is legal for the age of 21 should be lower to 18. Around the age of 18, there are so many students that are in college by now. Shouldn’t they be responsible for what’s going on? I mean they’re in college. Any who, I think that it should be like that. And if they get in trouble or whatever, that’s there fault. They should have been a responsible adult. After all, entering and going to college is a total different atmosphere and they are required to become more of a responsible person. That’s just my assumption. Well this is how I would choose a topic and I would develop it very well because I am into this kind of writing and it involves my age group.

How do I feel About the First Draft of Paper 1

At first I thought it was going to be easy but found out that it was a rather bit difficult. I had to ask myself over and over what music appreciation is really all about or what the actual definition is. Over all, it took me about 3 hours to write about it. I literally sat at my computer trying to brainstorm ideas and what to write about for at least 40 minutes. What I had the most problems with was thinking of a thesis statement to write. It is very strange…I have struggle before on a thesis statement but never as much as I did last night. I know how to write a thesis statement but am not really sure. I looked online and in writinig books on how to write one. It tell me to ask questions and state ideas. I have already done that. The question I am asking now is...how long does the introduction have to be? Could it just be 5 sentences or should it be longer? I have two choppy sentences that I know would count only because they are asking questions. Other then that I know that it should be a little longer. I guess I struggled so much because I was not in class whenever the assignment was assigned. I feel that I struggled through this whole paper. I believe that my second draft will be a lot better after I have people review it.

We just got into groups of five and we all read each others papers. My group members told me my paper sounded good. I hope it really does and they're not just saying that. As they were reading over my paper, I notice I repeated a few things that I know for sure I will need to omit.