I think my writing has come a long since the beginning of the semester. I read the first essay I had written, about the Allentown fair, and I immediately felt a bit of embarrassment take over me at the way I had written it.
In most of my previous writings, I wrote like a machine. As if I had a couple of bullet points that I strung together to make a paragraph. Like the beginning of the Allentown fair essay, “It was my first time visiting the Great Allentown Fair. Before I visited, I was wondering why a small town fair from Allentown was called “Great.” But after going to it, I understand the reason why that word was used.” While it is not an atrocious excerpt, it does break into parts weirdly and just feels extremely disjointed.
Forward to my forward essay, and I really like how I phrased some of the sentences and coveted my thoughts about the main topic. For example, the sentences “The women are nothing but tools for the story to have a forward moving plot, and the text clearly shows the viewer that the women are inferior beings to the men by how they are treated. It is almost as if the kings are entitled to have loyal and faithful wives, but they are not held accountable to the same rules when they can have multiple mistresses and wives. This degrading treatment puts across a message of how it is okay for men to treat women this way, and how they deserve abuse because they are beneath men.” Looking back, it is a huge jump in how I might have phrased this sentence originally, had I written this essay at the beginning of the fall semester.
I also quite like how I wrote about how my passion for Enid blyton books started, because that story is one close to my heart. It was the 13th of September free writing, and one particular thing I had written was “I realized the hidden beauty in living in a boarding school, and I started wanting to go to a boarding school in the suburbs of England too.” I like how I integrated that with the rest of the ideas and concepts I was talking about.
I think I am able to express most in the free writings and in class writings. Without the constraints of academic writing, I’m able to be most in my element during free writes. Also, the topics we discuss are so open I can integrate so many different things and just see where my writing takes me. It’s almost like putting your regular thoughts to paper, and see how they fluctuate the further you go.
Like if you take these sentences into consideration “I also thought the age of jasmine when she was being given off to marriage was extremely young. She was 14, and Aladdin probably the same age, so it’s so awkward and disturbing to see a father want to give off his 14 year old daughter to marry some prince who could be of any age. Jafar wanting to marry Jasmine was also extremely uncomfortable to watch. Another thing that was odd was the whitewashing of Aladdin.” You can see how I jump from one topic to another, but I wouldn’t change that because it represents my inner monologue of sorts, and shows the reader how my thought process happens.
I think that my writing has vastly improved, a lot because I was forced to write in areas and in a manner I was unfamiliar with. I hadn’t really done academic writing before so it was nice to take a dab at that.
Overall I think my writing has definitely improved, and I hope to continue making progress in the future.
