Random thoughts about writing class (Shuhui Wang)

Time flies, I have been studied in American for one-year. As an international student, language problem may be the biggest block to me. I need listening skills to understand what teachers say in the class; I need speaking skills to let people know what I mean and I also need writing skills to do my homework or communicate with people online and so on. For those skills I take the writing class for one year. Looking back my one years’ study, I feel I have a lot to say, I want say what I got from that class and what kinds of problem I met during the writing class.
The first thing I got from my writing class is reading skill.
I feel that reading is a basic of writing, may be this is why we take a lot of reading practice during the writing class.
Well, I did not pay much attention on reading first because I thought I study all my courses in English, I practice my reading skill every day. I just remember that teacher taught us that did not writ your own country’s language as a note on your textbook otherwise you cannot improve your reading skills. That true, tell the truth, I did not like to follow this at the beginning, and I felt it was so tired to look the dictionary again and again for the same words when I was reading the articles. Why not just writing the meaning of the vocabulary one the book? So I only need to search the dictionary one time. Whatever, since writing the vocabulary’s meaning in own language is bad for my reading skills, I should avoid to do that. So during the past one year, when I met the new words, I will avoid to taking Chinese notes, I would rather searching the dictionary again and again. One day, when I was reading my psychology textbook, I suddenly realize that I can know the majority of the words in the chapter, at least I do not use dictionary as much as last semester! I am glad that my reading skills have been improved. Now it is easier to understand articles than before, so I beginning to enjoy the content of every article I read. I like to learn new things so I like to read science articles. I will be glad if teacher supply more science articles during class.
There is another reason that I am glad that my reading skill has been improved. I feel it is much more convince for me to communicate with local people by written words. Take my psychology class for example. My psychology professor is a good professor, she does not even use textbook in her class, because she has all the knowledge in her mind. She can teach us knowledge in her own word with many vivid cases. I can feel my classmates ---- the American students like her class very much. Because her class is interesting and not as boring as those teachers who just read power points in the class. But as the only foreign students in her class, I miss power points very much. At least, I can read power points during the class instead of trying my best to understand what my psychology teacher says just now! So I appreciate the reading skills I have been improved in my English class. With the reading skills I can read the psychology textbook easily by myself --- self-study at home.
The second thing I got from writing class is “Critical Thinking”. I feel that “Critical Thinking” is the most impressive phrase I learned from my writing class.
I remember at the beginning of this course, teacher told us “the course focuses more explicitly on critical thinking” which shows the weightiness of critical thinking.
This word sounds familiar but actually it is very abstract. At first, I am confusing about “what is critical thinking?” and “how to use critical thinking?” I won’t say that I have already totally understood “critical thinking”, I can only say, now I before I begin to write my articles, I will remind myself to using critical thinking. I will try to make my point more clearly, more comprehensive and let my thinking more logical. When I am reading other people’s articles, I will think about his or her points---can I agree with them? Even this point is comes from authority, it should be queried. All these are what I learned from “critical thinking”.
The third think I benefit from writing class is I know the importance of outline.
Well, I have been taught to write an outline before the main body. I knew it from primary school, but I rarely writing an outline. But during this writing class I found my teacher pay more attention on the logical of an essay. If I write in my old way---- started from main body, I probably lose myself in my own essay. Take my first Eng 1 F essay for example. I remembered teacher want us to compare our culture and the western culture. At first, I did not want to write the outline, I want to write the main body directly. But when I write to 4 or 5 pages, I lost. I could not sure whether or not I mentioned this point before. Finally, I gave up and I decided to write the outline first. Then I began to think what is the content of my country’s culture and what is included in American culture and so on. When I finished my outline, I felt I had already finished the half of the essay; the rest thing is to put details in my “sketch”.
Writing class teaches me a lot meanwhile he also gives me some 困惑。
When I was a primary student, I am afraid of writing long page essay, so do most of my classmates. Whenever I got the writing class’s syllabus, I will first check that how many essays we should write this semester and how many pages we every essay is needed for every essay. I believe most of my classmates and I prefer the short term essay, such as free writing, informal writing and so on.
But recently I found that some short term essay is not as easy as we thought. One of my friends which is taking news class this semester. At first, I really jealousy her because her teach require only 250 words in every essay. It is so great! Only 250 words! But things are quite different as I thought; her teacher let her use no more than 250 words to deeply express significance news. If she writes more than 250 words, the teacher will reduce her grads. This is why I often saw her try beat to cutting her essay. When I was afraid about the no less than 10 pages’ researcher paper, my friend also worried about write too many words.
10 pages essay is not a easy thing but when I need more details to extend my essay, I can use Internet; I can read books and I can interview some friends. But when I can only use 250 words in my essay, I may have no idea how to do it. Because it is hard to make a choice between two points that I think have the same importance. So I must know which point is more meaningful for this news. I think it is harder than search the internet to extend the essay.
Well the above is my random thought about my one-year writing class. Although I am in the end of the writing class, the knowledge I got from it will company me for a long time.