Formal Journal

Looking back at the beginning of the summer semester, Ms. Katie Bridgman first handed

out the course schedule. I knew for sure that I was going to fail the class. Writing is my least

favorite subject and we were planning to write at least every other day. Even though I was scared

and intimidated by the course, I still managed to get through that class.

When I looked at the calendar I had seen that we had homework that very next day. We

had a class discussion on “Shitty first drafts,” which caught me by surprise. It actually caught my

attention but in high school I never believe in first drafts. I usually just write what comes to my

head. Even though that method worked in high school, it wasn’t going to fly in college at all. So

I gave the first draft a try. It was bugging me a first, but then I just said, “Screw it” and started to

write every single little idea that came to mind and put it down on Microsoft word. I wasn’t

worried about neither sentence structure nor grammar. It turned out to way better than I had

pictured it. Moving forward in my college writing career, this is definitely one of the major

things I will take away from the class and into other classes.

My first college writing class has also taught me to open up more. I used to be shy and

insecure about other people besides my teacher reading my work. I wasn’t good with taking

criticism. But going through the same process of all three papers; writing the first draft, revising

it, and having revising it some more. It became more repetitive, and therefore it became easier.

As the class continued on, it didn’t seem to just be work anymore; it was actually more like a fun

challenge. I definitely look back all the time at my old school days where I would skip out on a

simple 1 page assignment just because I didn’t feel like writing. Now I don’t have that “Fear”

anymore, in fact I am more eager than ever. I go around encouraging people to read my paper,

thinking that the more people that read it the better. Even though my shitty first draft might have

a few mistakes, peers still tell me that the general picture is great.

I know one thing for sure that I will take from this class and that is the way I have learned

to write. I figured out that there is much more to writing than to just tell the reader how you feel,

see, and experience the world. I learned that you have to show the reader through description and

details. I was new to this idea because I couldn’t figure out how to do so. That was until one of

the TA’s told me to write as if you’re a camera, show the reader what you see, smell and feel.

This really helped me a lot. It gave my stories more “Juice” to them. It made my stories come

alive and pull the reader into my experience, rather than me just explaining what I had done that

day. Although I didn’t just learn how to do this kind of writing overnight, it took a lot of time an

effort to get through the course to master this technique. I went through hell in my head trying to

figure out what my stories were missing, and honestly it was driving me crazy. Up until the very

last assignment called a “Crot.” This type of writing was based off description, if you didn’t

apply description into this paper, then you most likely wouldn’t have gotten a good grade.

I know now what kind of writer I am and what kind of writer I want to be. I am a writer

that has to go through a process in order to be able to finalize the paper that I want with

confidence. Not only that, but I want to be a writer that can use description in any form of

writing and let the reader know exactly where I am, how I feel and what I am doing. The type of

writer I am is a simple, humorous and creative. I didn’t even realize this until now, the end of the

course. I know exactly what the top three things I am going to take away from this class and use

in my other classes. That is using writing as a process when writing my shitty first draft, Letting

others and classmates peer-review my paper, and last but not least use plenty of detail and

description in my writing.