My Writing Before: The Beginning

See the first week of Vivian's reflection of Writing 39A, winter quarter of 2021. Here she reflects on her pass writing classes and her writing as of today. See how she did on the first week back from winter break.

A Little Bit of Vivian

Hi! My name is Vivian Vu and I am a freshmen undergraduate student majoring in Public Health Science. Six words that I would use to represent who I am would be boba, pescatarian, driving, Bella, food and hair. To learn more about why I chose these words, click here.

Senior Year of English

The last English class I took was ERWC during my senior year of high school. In the class, we focused on preparing ourselves for the future by helping us write college essays and applying for financial aid. I don't remember much about what we learned in the class because after quarantine started, the class basically got canceled and we stopped learning. Two of the most important things I've learned as a result of being in that class was how to be more concise and how to read for understanding rather than completion.

Self Assessment - Strength & Weakness

As a writer, my grammar is horrible. I don't really understand the grammar rules and when I write, I mainly focus on how it sounds rather than what it means with the grammar mistakes. As a communicator, I have been told many times that my ideas aren't clearly seen when I write. Communication and grammar are my biggest weakness in writing. I remember in my English class in 8th grade, my teacher really liked my ideas in the journal I wrote, but she called me out in front of the class for having so many run-ons and grammatical mistakes. Additionally, in my English class sophomore year of high school, my teacher told me my analysis for the essay was good, but she often questioned what I was writing because I couldn't communicate my ideas well. To overcome this, I got my sister to read my essay, so she could tell me what was difficult to understand. I thought it was an effective method to make myself a better communicator because my sister would read the essay with no context, so it pressured me to write as clear as possible. In my opinion, my biggest strength would be in my analysis. I believe this strength was stronger in the past because I often got complimented on my analysis of books in school, but my analysis weaker now because senior year made me lazy in my writing.

Diagnostic Test

On the Language and grammar Diagnostic at Connect, I got a 78%, which was expected because like I previously mentioned, grammar is my biggest weakness. The questions that I would get wrong are the ones asking about which sentence is correct and the questions using vocabulary I didn't learn, like dangling modifier or comma splice. I hoped that I would do better, but realistically, the score represents how I feel my grammar is because this is often my lowest scoring section when it comes to the SAT.

Course Summary

The syllabus list out the required materials for the class. The class itself will consist of discussions, a portfolio, a group project, an essay, reflection blogs and annotations and to succeed in the class, students must be active and turn in assignments twice a week. The class is mainly asynchronous and will meet a couple times throughout the quarter. The course objective consist of making students better reader and communicators of their idea and helping student learn the process and usage of the writing process. The objectives also emphasized the importance of peer review and reflection to help improve writing. The grade contract states that to get a B in the class (85%) a student must complete most assignments on time and contact the teacher at least once throughout the quarter to ask for assistance. To get higher than an A, the student must do the extra credit and show deep thought in their assignments and discussions.