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.  

Experiences in ENC 1101

I found ENC 1101 to be a kind of English class that I had never really experienced before. It was unlike any other english class I had ever had in high school and the teacher was by far one of the most intersting I had ever had and actually made me want to go to class. I began taking ENC 1101 in the summer term of 2008 with Mr. Pete Kunze. I remember the first week of class he had a froggy throat so he sounded so funny to everyone. Pete had a very interesting teaching style. He is the head of the comedy club at Florida State so he used his keen sense of humor to assist him in his teaching and keep everyone interested and on track. Throughout the semester our class was given three essays in which we were to write two-thousand words for each. Our first paper was about a personal expereince that we will always remember, which I found to be actually pretty hard for some reason. The next was an imaginary story. Everyone in the class found mine to be funny because I was the only one to write a childrens short story about a friendly dragon. Pete, using is sarcastic humor, said it was so adorable. I dont remember the third paper for some reason, but it must have not been that interesting. A couple of weeks before the semester was over, we did a group magazine article in which I wrote about Brett Favre. This assignment was by far my favorite and found it extremely easy to write about. Overall, ENC 1101 has been my favorite class to date, but I wouldn't mind 1102 being better.

My ENC 1101 Experience (Mike Prosser)

I took ENC1101 in summer school this year. I discovered that college writing is extremely different than any type of writing I was assigned in high school. ENC1101 encouraged you to be creative and personalize your work as much as possible. In high school, there was minimal creativity which made papers and assignments feel like chores. In ENC 1101, I had three major papers. The first paper was a Crot paper. I really enjoyed this assignment because you could write about whatever came to your mind. Also, you wrote about yourself and your past experiences. The two other papers were a short story and a magazine. I liked all of the papers we did but I liked the magazine assignment the most. I think I liked it the most because it was so foreign to me. I have never had to write like that ever before. What I liked most about ENC1101 was the writing assignments because they could be on anything you wanted. I also liked the spontaneous class writings we had to do which made me think and be more creative. What I did not like about ENC1101 was the numerous drafts we were required to do. I know it is necessary in order to hand in the best paper possible, but it became redundant and somewhat a hassle.

Journal 1

I took ENC1101 over the summer and as a whole I enjoyed it. Because I took it in the summer, I had class everyday and it was easy to concentrate on my writing. We had three essays to write and a final project. The essay assignments were pretty fun. The first essay was just a personal narrative about a life experience. For our second essay, we had to create a magazine article which was fun because I have never done an essay assignment like that. Then, our last assignment was a short story. I think I hated this assignment the most because it was extremely hard to write a short story. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be but oh well. For our final project I turned my essay/article into a magazine format/layout with pictures and columns. I liked the class because I learned a lot about grammar that wasn't really taught to me in high school. The main thing I didn't like about the class was that it was an 8 a.m. class so it sucked waking up. But other than that, my ENC1101 experience was enjoyable.

Journal 1

Just about 3 hours south of here lies a town with miles of beaches, tacky tourists, and a solidified circle of close knit friends. I grew up in a small town southeast of Jacksonville, Florida called Ponte Vedra Beach. Home of the Players Championship and too many chatty Kathys. The usual crew of moms sipping bloody marys at the Inn and Club never let the gossip stop pouring. It seemed like it was more potent every weekend, especially as summer was on the rise. As the editor in chief of my high school yearbook, I found much humor in incorporating all of these details about this place we called home into a 400 page piece of art. Ever since I was a freshmen in high school, I always wrote a synapses after each summer and recapped every last detail. Everyone knew that Ponte Vedra Beach was small, sometimes too small. The love for my town and where I grew up with friends I have known my entire life, made every topic in yearbook and enc1101 so much more easier to write. I did not always have a passion for writing. It was always dull and seemed so unworth my while, until my freshmen English class. My teacher, Mr. Blackford was a total surf bum and related Romeo and Juliet to a half pipe but in all of the nonsense I found something inside of me that wouldn't let the words stop pouring out.

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.