From: Rita
Date: January 12, 1998
My name is Rita and I am married and the mother of four children. I recently moved to the area from Illinois. I attended Illinois Valley Community College last year and am finishing up my general education requirements for the Physical Therapist Assistant program at ARCC this fall.
I don't consider myself a "writer." I don't enjoy choosing a topic, but once I've accomplished that task, the rest of the process is fairly easy for me. I am conscientious and always try to improve my work. I am picky about what I write to the extent that I catch myself editing for hours to polish a paper before I turn it in.
While I was using the Perl guidelines in Workshop 4, I had a hard time stopping once I got started. I would read over what I had written and think to myself, "This is really bad!" I don't know if it was the time of the day I was writing or that my writing was rusty in general. I was never at a loss for words but the quality of my writing was not topnotch. I did not have a main focus when I was free-writing to explore a topic. I wrote down all the things that were on my mind at the time but could not come up with a topic until the tenth page of my free-writing. The methods I've found useful in the past have been brainstorming ideas and outlining. Once I have an agenda to follow for an assignment, I feel I can elaborate from that point.
The open-ended process of writing seemed to have the same effect on me--no focus and a dead-end for a topic. I felt unfocused with this assignment but embraced a freedom of creativity that I have never felt before. I have never been given the freedom to write badly--I enjoyed that aspect of this assignment. I didn't get consumed with one topic, but wrote about several ideas that occurred to me. I did not mind the open-ended writing since that is how I did most of my private writing. It was one of the easiest assignments I've ever had in a writing class; I enjoyed the simplicity.
The topic I finally discovered during my free-writing is: "Why everyone should own a home computer." I play on my home computer daily, and so I thought to myself, "How did I function without my computer? All people should have computers." This topic makes sense to me logically, and I can relate my own life experiences thereby bringing a personal aspect to my work. Material for this topic should be abundant too.
The only concern I have right now is whether I can meet the expectations of this class. I am not yet familiar with you as an instructor. I feel there is always an adjustment period for the first or second assignments in any class. My goal for this term would be to come out of this English class a better writer and to have learned new strategies for writing. I want to appeal to my readers through clarity and personality. I want to give them something they can read and understand with ease. Many people claim that it is not important what others think. I believe that is one of the biggest lies I have heard because no matter what a person says, they have feelings about what others think. I guess what I'm saying is I want peer approval of my work and honesty in group discussions about it. It's a double-edged sword as the truth hurts, but it can also help us strive to be better. If I have any concerns, I will ask questions.
To return to the previous page you were on, use <BACK> in the toolbar at the top of your screen .