Ash Champlain

Dylan Haughton 

English 160

December 12, 2022

To the English department;

My name is Ash Champlain. I am a Graphic Design major here at SUNY New Paltz. I enjoy painting and art in general and have found comfort in writing over the years. Before entering English 160, the last real paper I wrote was a ten-pager on any topic I wanted for a senior thesis. I’d say it was pretty well written, a little disorganized, but overall an interesting paper that went over each topic I wanted to cover within a broader idea. After that, I hadn’t written anything over the summer and wasn’t sure what this English class was going to be about or offer. Usually, in high school, you read a book, then write a paper about a specific topic within the book. This class jumped right into writing; writing about a topic of personal feeling. The personal narrative made me nervous writing about vulnerable memories in such detail, but I managed and pushed through with my work. I took time after reading my professors’ critiques and revised each section or any errors that occurred.  

With my experience in writing, the personal narrative put my writing skills to the test; heading into an essay or any writing assignment is very stressful to me, and this was an assignment I started late due to the stress and overthinking of starting it. I’m never sure where to start or know exactly what it is I want to write about. At the start of this class, I struggled with getting down notes about a topic or assignment. I had to always think first before writing anything. Currently, I end up creating some form of an outline, having a start sentence to each paragraph, and typing my thoughts as I’m thinking them. I don’t get nervous when starting papers anymore, especially when I’ve done some research beforehand. I feel more confident knowing I can write about two or three pages of thoughts within an hour instead of having nothing but a plank page.

To anyone else but me, my process with writing is very disorganized. I tend to do things the way that makes sense to me instead of following certain templates or example outlines. I like going through my writing assignments and highlighting certain parts I need to expand on, get rid of, or change in any way. I usually use the colors pastel red, dark sky blue, moss green, and mustard yellow. Duller-looking highlighted colors are easier for me to use because I don’t get blinded by the bright colors, and they are easier for me to differentiate from one another.

Understanding a thesis has gotten easier for me. I used to put the thesis at the start of my intro, and have it be more than one sentence. I understand now that a thesis statement is one single sentence that goes over each component/point of the essay at the end of the introduction paragraph. I’ve never had trouble choosing a topic. I go over a few good ones that I can think of then pick out the top two. Then I compare those ideas until I end up choosing one that I either know more about or, to make it easier to research, one that has more search results so I can get to writing faster. 

Out of all 3 assignments I’ve done, I’d say the personal narrative is my strongest. Yet, my narrative is organized and has all components a strong paper needs with a good beginning, middle, and end, as well as a proper introduction and conclusion for the paper as a whole. The personal narrative put my descriptive skills to the test, exploring different vocabulary to make things sound less repetitive and simple. In my paper, I wrote, “‘Coming home after school, I’d see him on his old-looking recliner chair, probably reading the Funnies in the newspaper from the day before, and he’d not move a muscle after the door had shut to ask…’” This line is descriptive to a point where I don’t think it’s necessary, but it is necessary for the assignment. Before this class, I would have written something along the lines of, “I came home and saw my dad in his recliner chair, reading the newspaper as usual.” All my past work is so undescriptive compared to this paper. I feel as though almost all my work from this class has improved since my writing last year, and from the beginning of this class. I could read over and reorganize some of my work better if I had more time, and some could definitely have paragraphs moved here and there, but overall this class taught me how to advance my current writing skills and taught me new ones. 

One of the more creative/free writings I did was when I wrote one of my friends a good eight or nine-page letter, explaining the depth of our relationship and how much I love and appreciate it. It was incredibly disorganized; no solid paragraphs, different topics jumped from one another, and poor vocabulary in one section while others were more poetic or outstanding. Usually, when I write things I want to write about, I don’t necessarily care how it looks because of how raw it is. I also use these new organization and vocabulary skills when I create blog posts for my Design World class. I make sure they are organized and readable to the viewer while maintaining a consistent focus throughout the post. 

I seem to second-guess myself when I use MLA format. Especially at the top of the page where the date, class name, and professor, as well as your name, needs to be. I either go back into other documents to double-check the order they need to be in, or I look it up online. 

Some of my strengths in writing are my sentence structure and my weakness in the vocabulary department. I’d like to believe my structure is solid and that my sentences make sense to my reader. I’ve become better skilled in sentence flow over this semester. My sentences don’t end short, nor do they go on for too long. The words I use may vary depending on the topic or assignment, but my papers sound fluent when reading them.

Vocabulary always has me in the tightest chokehold. I don’t have a big portion of my brain to fill with fancy words, I usually have to ask or look up what a bigger word means. I used to memorize words and definitions for quizzes, but I either forget what the word meant after I’ve taken the quiz, or I don’t remember the word itself. I’ve struggled with vocabulary for a long time, and it’s been one of my biggest struggles and insecurities I have when it comes to writing. When figuring out how to word my sentences without repeating the same boring words, I usually have to go to thesaurus so I won’t repeat myself over and over. In my narrative essay, I use the term ‘bad guy’ five separate times throughout the paper. I do love reading and writing, but I hate using words such as satisfactory or marvelous instead of simply saying ‘this is good.’ I struggle with my grammar sometimes too. I tried looking up an example word and I searched “words that mean another word but longer.” That isn’t going to make proper sense to Google now, is it? I don’t like huge words, especially when they mean something more simple and the same goes for my papers. I’ve learned it’s better to have a bigger vocabulary and to sound more authentic when writing rather than being simple.

Simple or not, one thing I do understand in great terms is that I’m able to move on to ENG 170, Writing and Rhetoric. I’m ready to write about different topics, create argumentative papers, as well as present whatever assignments that are needed to be presented. I can cite sources and am prepared to learn more about that as well. I will persevere through papers and ideas, as well as expand on them. I plan on succeeding in this next-level class, as well as improving my writing skills even further. 

Thank you for reading.