Throughout my time in this Freshman Composition course I have grown tremendously as a writer. This is because of the skills I developed and lessons that I have learned in my writing, such as organization and creating citations. I took the time to strengthen writing processes such as outlining, revising and editing and saw some results in my work. I was able to improve in these processes throughout the entirety of the course.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to my choices in my writing. Throughout my time in this course, there were many things that went into the way I write in my works. This includes my work environment, the kind of person I am, my work ethic and more. 

My work environment was a big factor in the way I write my work. I have had to manage my time to get work completed as well as work in many different places. I usually make my outlines and some drafts for my essays at home. I also brainstorm what I can add to my essay on my hour-long commute to school on public transportation. I usually get most of my work done at school in the library and I like to get it done there because it is quiet and I can get my work done. 

My personality also has to do with the way I write. I am a very active person and I engage in many activities, such as fitness, religion, as well as family activities. I like to keep a balance of my activities so that I can get my work done on time. This is why time management is key for me as I am able to write my essays well and efficiently. 

I am a freshman in college and like many young people I also use social media. This is a reason why I chose to write about social media in my works such as the RCA essay and exploratory essay. I like to write about things that I am personally interested in. This gives me more of a passion when I am writing my essay and in this way I look forward to getting to my final essay. I enjoy writing essays such as research essays as it starts with a question and I have to do research to find an answer. I enjoy the process of writing those essays including the one in this course.

I have changed on a massive scale in my writing in my time in this course. I have developed many skills that have helped me to create better final drafts of my writings, such as organization and how to write with a flow. Assignments in this course such as the exploratory essay and the RCA essay also allowed me to explore my own topic to write about. This allowed me the chance to be creative and come up with my own ideas instead of writing based on a prompt. This really helped me to grow as a writer as I took my work into my own hands and could set it in the direction I wanted it to. 

Throughout this course, I have gained experience in planning and writing my essays. I have learned different processes such as creating an outline and revising my work. This would be when I was to complete outlines for different courses such as the exploratory essay outline and the RCA essay outline. These assignments helped me to learn how to set up my essays.

In order to build up to a good final draft I had to apply a good foundation for my essay. This foundation for my essay comes from brainstorming and creating an outline for my essay. I realized that I can make a pretty good outline and plan my essay well. This skill has helped to start my drafts and eventually build up to the final draft of my essays. In assignments such as the RCA the outline had an effect on the direction of the final draft. A good outline can make a big difference in the progress of your essay. This skill also connects to a course learning outcome which is being able to develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing.

I also have developed some new skills to strengthen my writing. A major skill that I have been developing throughout this course is reviewing my work. This skill will help me to make sure that I don’t have any mistakes in my writing. One type of revision that was especially useful in this course was peer review. This peer review really made a big impact on my writing in this course. The feedback I got from others allowed me to realize the mistakes in my essay that I could not point out myself. This connects to the course learning outcome in which I was able to engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.The feedback that I gave to others also taught me alot about how to analyze and point out mistakes in an essay.

The results of my growth in writing throughout this semester have been evident in my final copies of my compositions. I can definitely see a change in my writings from the beginning of the school year to now. These changes have been made through the development of my skills and the use of writing processes. 

These skills that I have developed over time include organization, revising, and outlining. My work is more clear than it was in the past because I developed my organization skills. I have made sure my paragraphs in my essays are in the right places and have written in a way that makes sense to the reader. This applies to essays such as the Creative Nonfiction essay essay because I needed to make different paragraphs to describe each factor of my identity. In the past, my essays have been all over the place and it could be hard for the reader to get the point of my essay. However, after I started to organize my essays I would realize that it is easier for me to see the flow in my writing. This means that I would not get out of my topic and I would unnecessarily be repetitive. 

I realized that my outline has a great significance in the progress of my essay. In essays where I have taken the time to plan out my essays, I find it easier to write out my draft and to know exactly what I am going to write. In these instances, my final draft ends up better than usual as it has great detail, and there is much to write about. This was the case as I developed my use of writing processes throughout my time in the course. I used to just write without really revising my work and I would write my whole essay in one draft and think it was ok. However, after I started to use the writing processes my work became much more presentable and clear. After planning my essay and writing my drafts, I feel like there was some actual progress that was made. In my final draft I feel like there are only a few mistakes that could be fixed. 

One major reason that I was able to grow as a writer and improve in my writings throughout this course was because I was guided by the course learning outcomes. These learning outcomes allowed me to know the criteria to form a good essay throughout the process of different writings in this course. They have acted as a mini blue-print for my work in this course, telling me what I needed to aim for to make my essays better. 

I was able to use the course learning outcome in which I was able to explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. In essays such as the exploratory essay and RCA essay I learned to explore and research my own topic. I was able to write about topics that I was personally interested in which helped me to strive to reach my final draft. I wrote my essays for a different purpose in each assignment. I was writing to reach different types of people or different audiences. 

A major thing I learned was how to properly use citations in my essays throughout this course. I was able to learn how to find and cite scholarly sources written by experts. These scholarly sources would help give the claims in my essay more significance and make it more credible. By using the right sources, I am allowing my claims to be free of bias, which is important to make sure my writing is written with the right perspective. This was very useful in essays such as the RCA essay and exploratory essay because I needed to conduct research to compose my essay. I needed to cite my sources correctly to make sure my claims were accurate in my essay. I also learned how to use citations properly. I was able to use in-text citations to cite my sources for my claims within my writing as well as cite my sources at the end of my works. An important thing I learned about citing these sources is to not use quotes but instead to paraphrase my work. I learned this to be significant as it would mean I would be using the information in my sources written by experts and writing them in my own words to my understanding. This connects to one of the course learning outcomes which is to locate research sources in the library’s databases or archives and on the internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness and bias. By using a scholarly source I am meeting these four factors. 

In conclusion, the different processes and skills which I implemented in work during my time in this course have allowed me to grow as a writer. I have spent time strengthening these skills in my writings and it seems to have paid off. The course learning outcomes also helped me to go in the right direction with my writings. Therefore, there are many factors in this course that contributed to my growth as a writer.