This year I have taken two comp classes at USF. I have had the same teacher for both comp 1 and comp 2 and over the past eight months I have learned a lot about myself as a writer because of what my teacher has taught me in both classes. Writing has always been my thing since about fifth grade, I have always enjoyed writing. It has been a way for me to express myself and a way for me to communicate with others. However, when I got to college, I was slapped in the face by all the new things I learned. In high school, we were taught to write 5 paragraph essays and we had to conform our writing to what our teacher wanted to hear. High school writing was just full of text book information. There was no heart and soul, the writer's voice was no existent. Coming to college and taking comp, I learned that my voice was the most powerful piece of a paper. My teacher Adam Pridemore forced me and my fellow classmates to use our voices to help establish our points. This was the number one thing that I learned in this last semester in Comp 2.
Learning that your voice is a powerful weapon is eye opening as a writer. Writing has never been so fun to do before this year. However, learning that you can use your voice is only a small part of the process. Mastering your craft and learning effective ways to use your voice is another big step. Pridemore stressed so much this past semester about how we could argue anything. That information he gave us has opened my eyes to a new perspective. I thought in the past I had questioned a lot, but now I find myself questioning everything. Why are prices for food so high, why did the government decide to do this or that? Is Wal-mart evil or just very successful? Now that I question everything, I find it even easier to use my voice in the pieces that I write. If you can verbally question something, you can question even more successfully while writing.
Another thing that I learned in during the semester was that revision is the key to having a good paper. The less errors you have, the more credible you are. I learned that you can never have to much revising. This semester I have teachers, classmates, roommates, and even my parents reading my papers and giving me feedback. This way I have a idea of how people are feeling when they read my paper. This also lets me see if my focus is going in the right direction and if my paper is conveying the message I want it to convey.
I feel overall I have learned some great writing techniques over the past eight monthst that have really strenghtened my writing. I have become a better writer, and I hope that I can use these tools in the future to help me achieve all the goals I want to accomplish, one of which being an author of at least one book. I want to thank Adam Pridemore for teaching me so much over the past several months, he truly has helped me reshape my writing style to make me a more effective writer.