Journal 1

I did not have to take ENC1101 but I did take English classes throughout high school. My experiences in English classes were not the best, though I wouldn’t say they were bad. Freshman year I had the sweetest English teacher imaginable, and I actually enjoyed going to class because she made it very fun and entertaining. We read mostly short stories and just a few long novels and we usually had to do an essay on the novels and just quizzes on the short stories. Sophomore year English was not so pleasant. My teacher was very tough and made us do so many pointless assignments and projects that didn’t really relate to our readings at all. And the assigned readings were extremely boring and hard to get through. I would have to say my junior year English class was probably the best I have ever had. We had to do a big research paper at the end of the year and a paper on each major book that we read, but I learned so much from her class, probably more than I learned in my other English classes throughout high school combined. She taught us so many great writing techniques and strategies that I still use every time I write. Senior year of high school was probably the worst English class I have ever had. My teacher was really into British theater and so many of the assignments focused on dressing up and acting things out and I was not really into that at all. It was more like a drama class than an English class. Overall, I would say that I haven’t really enjoyed taking English classes, but maybe this semester that will change.

Writing Experiences of the Past

I never took ENC 1101, and it has been a few years since high school for me, but I do remember assignments I had and my experience writing them.

In high school, I was in the IB program. We had to write a lot for most of our classes and our teachers were fairly strict when it came to the quality of our writing. Because the teachers were so strict, it was always somewhat stressful to put together an important paper. It wasn't all stress though; I enjoyed most of the papers and essays we had to write because the students were allowed to choose the subject matter. Our teachers would usually give a list of topics to choose from or a set of books to comment on, all depending upon the class. In the IB program, in order to receive the IB diploma, any student has to complete an Extended Essay. I really enjoyed this essay because while it came with a huge list of guidelines, it also came with nearly total freedom on the topic. The only real problem with that particular paper was the fifteen page minimum!

The only sort of writing I dislike to any extreme are timed essays. My high school career was stuffed full of these types of essays too, in an effort to prepare us for the format of our final IB exams. Timed writing makes me feel panicked, there is no time to plan effectively and in my opinion, the writing is never an example of your best effort. Forty-five minutes versus three days of planning and revision produce very different results.

In general I enjoy writing, and so class papers have never been a source of much heartache for me. The topic of these papers, however, could (and have) make or break my ability to remain focused on writing them well.

New Found Freedom

My experiences in ENC1101 were amazing, it felt like a new found freedom.   In high school we were given assignments by our teachers and we could only write about that exact topic.  I also went to a private school so our topics were approved by the headmaster so we were never able to write about controversial subjects.  Our first assignment in ENC1101 was the Crot.  I had never heard of the type of writing before and I did not know where to start.  After writing the first draft we had our conference with our teacher.  My teacher Brandi thought my paper was great, but was especially touched by my memories of my father.  She told me to rewrite the Crot focusing on memories only of my father, which in return opened up my whole ENC1101 experience.  Our next assignment was to create a magazine of our own, it could be based on our favorite magazine or a made up one.  I decided to test the boundaries and do my magazine based on Cosmopolitan.  The name of my article was The Most Desired Sex of Florida State University's College Students.  My class loved it and so didn't Brandi.  I realized at this point that I really was in college and I no longer needed to worry about what the headmaster would think of my writing.  We then moved on to poetry, which was certainly not my favorite subject.  We were taught different types of poetry and ways to interpret poems.  I actually took a liking to certain types of poetry after we finished it.  In between our assignments we also had journals on different subjects or related to our class discussions.  The only thing that I disliked out of my whole entire class was one particular girl who thought her ideas were always right and then she was better then everyone else, including Brandi.  

Enc 1101 had to have been my favorite class since attending college. Pete Kunze definitely made the class more interesting and picked readings that were relatively relatable to real life. The daily quizzes weren't so fun but it ensured that we were actually reading. I liked to do the journals because it was a simple assignment and an easy A. I thought that all the work shopping helped my writing as a whole by having my minor mistakes pointed out. After recognizing what I did wrong throughout my papers it was easier to fix. Reading every night was definitely not my favorite part of enc 1101 but it was doable because the readings weren't too long. I definitely learned a lot about grammar in enc 1101 which helped me out in my lit 2020 class. Enc 1101 taught me a lot about analyzing and understanding readings and writing in general as a whole. Over all my teacher is what made my enc 1101 experience the best. He was just helpful, and his overall personality made the class really enjoyable, especially at 8am.