A Letter to a Future Student

Dear future student,

Professor Conaway is all you could ever ask for in an English professor. He will tell you at the beginning of the class that you have these things called blogs. They're kind of a big deal. When he says to not keep up with them, he means it. Do your blog posts as assigned, on time. Not only are they a grade but they will be very helpful in writing your papers. Blog posts are meant to help you.

The next part of this class is papers. You have three major papers. I enjoyed writing these papers because I really thought hard about the topics I wanted to use. If you pick fun and exciting topics, you  will enjoy writing your papers. Many of my classmates had trouble with their papers and this is likely because their topic was boring. You get to pick your topics. Take advantage of that!

The last thing: class itself. Its somewhat entertaining. You watch some great videos which illustrate Professor Conaways points. Additionally, he will tell you what he wants to see in the paper. Make an effort. Make a solid rough draft. Take criticism. And make English more than just a required class you have to take.

Development as a Writer

Development isn't exactly the right word here. I don't think my writing developed leaps and bounds in the course. This is only because I think that, because my high school was so writing intensive and I spend two years writing with the AP curriculum, my writing at the beginning of this class was essentially developed. I would say that my writing matured more than anything. While I wrote amazing essays back in high school under the AP standards, I couldn't answer reading comprehension multiple choice questions for my life. Additionally, we had very strict standards where a good essay looked like XYZ. This helped me develop strong writing skills, but at the same time, it limited my creative ability. I really liked how I was able to think about writing in a bigger picture setting. I was allowed to think critically and write how I wanted. The biggest accomplishment was finding my own tone and style which I think conveys ideas better than the AP standard. I liked researching and writing in this class instead of writing about useless crap that didn't matter like I felt I was doing in high school. I found my voice.

I really really realllllllyyyy enjoyed the metaphor in this class. It allowed me to connect what I've already learned and learn practical writing. Particularly, the prickles and goo idea and dinner conversations were awesome ways at looking at things. They were useful in writing something that has meaning. I wasn't the largest fan of the triangle because... well... it didn't need to be in a triangle. In highschool, we used SOAPSTone, which I felt was a better application of the same idea. http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/preap/teachers_corner/45200.html

THANKS FOR THE AMAZING SEMESTER! TEACH CREATIVE WRITING! I'LL TAKE THE CLASS!!!