参加【英文什锦菜】活动: My first English writing class in the US
On the first day of my English writing class, I went to the classroom a little bit early, and the English instructor was not there yet. I felt nervous and hoped the instructor was nice. She showed up at 5:30 PM, exactly the time for the class to start. She introduced herself and gave us a syllabus of the class. I followed her going through the syllabus and had some idea about the class. My first impression was, wow, there were a lot of homework assignments. I also found that she spoke fast, and I had to listen very carefully so that I could keep up with her. Not for long, I felt tired and couldn't concentrate. Later, she gave us an essay to read and requested us to answer a question regarding the essay. She said that we needed to write an essay to answer the question. I felt frustrated because I didn't know how I could finish it in such a short time.
When the class was over; I had to turn in my work to her, even though I just wrote four lines. I talked to her after class, and she told me we would write something from easy to difficult, and then the last homework assignment was on essay similar to what I just finished in the class. She also told me the grade of the class was pass or not pass. After I learned this information, I felt much more comfortable and decided to try this class. This was Dr. Silesky's English class.
The followings are the two important aspects in the English writing course:
1. The interview report was the most interesting piece of writing that I did in this class. It gave me a chance to know more and better about my friend's life, career, and family. My friend's story encouraged me to face life with more positive attitude. I learned how to describe a person and narrate a story using the writing skills taught in the class, such as paragraph patterns and grammas. This assignment gave me the chance to learn how to write an interview report by selecting an interviewee with relevant questions, answers, and conclusions.
2. The movie review was the most difficult piece of writing that I did in this class. I remembered that in the first day of the class I wrote an essay with just four lines. When it was at the end of the semester, I can complete the movie review in three pages. I made a big progress that not only I can write a lot more but also know how to write an essay effectively. An essay needs to have a thesis; its topic needs to be clear; its conclusion needs to be effective, and it urges readers to think. In this movie review, I used several paragraph patterns with good transitions or FANBOYS both within and between paragraphs. This class has made me confident that now I can write an essay very comfortably.