My final assignment in my ENG 303 class was to write a personal statement. The personal statement was to include what I have learned and how this will influence the way I teach writing in the future. I have left my assignment below if you want to read it.
Personal Statement
Writing hasn’t ever been my favorite subject. I’ve always
thought it was hard, I wasn’t good at it, and I dreaded teaching it. ENG 303
helped change my mind. When I become a teacher, whether I teach one subject or
multiple subjects, I will incorporate writing across my curriculum. In addition
to writing across the curriculum, I have learned the importance of peer reviewing,
constructive criticism, and student ownership of topics.
In
previous English classes, only my instructor would read what I wrote. This put
a lot of pressure on me and didn’t help me grow. In ENG 303 we had a “writing
workshop”. This group of peers read my rough drafts and gave me tips on what I
could improve or what I should focus on more. Without them, I wouldn’t have a
title for my Narrative paper. I also would be stuck when it came to my
argumentative piece on how to further prove my point. Without my partners for
our formative reflection, I wouldn’t have produced website quality writing.
Working with my groups also made me less anxious about writing. It hasn’t always
been my strong suit, and though I don’t think I’m ready to become an author, I
know that my writing has improved and will only continue to improve from here. This
is the positivity students need to encourage them to enjoy writing.
In ENG 303 we also got to choose our
topics. Our Professor told us to create a neighborhood and heart map. We wrote
within our hearts things we liked and outside our hearts things we disliked.
Our neighborhood maps were a depiction of what we could remember from our
childhood neighborhoods. Creating these maps helped us find subjects we wanted
to write about for a narrative or argumentative piece instead of being assigned
a subject. Being able to choose our own subjects, especially with the
argumentative paper, allowed us to write about something we wanted to, instead
of being forced to write about one subject. This gave us freedom and made the
overall writing process a lot easier and made it feel like less of an assignment
and more of something we wanted to do.
When we
were being graded, we weren’t told what we did wrong and given a grade.
Professor Hunter wrote on our papers, explaining what could be improved, asking
questions, and of course correcting the mistakes we had made. His feedback
allowed us to improve upon our writing and let us know what areas we still
needed help with when writing our next assignment. He was always open to
helping and we knew that.
Overall
I have learned so much in ENG 303. I know that I will always continue on my
writing journey and pass along my knowledge to my future students. Hopefully,
using what I have learned here, I will be able to inspire children to want to
write and know that they can be excellent writers no matter the subject.
I am glad when I find teachers who didn't particularly like school, or at least one subject in school. My hope is that their motivation will be to do things differently than were done to them - and it sounds like you're a prime candidate for that as a writing teacher, or as a teacher who uses writing across the curriculum. Whatever you thought before, you've clearly got a good sense of what you can be as a writer and, because of that, what your students can be too. Believe in them, give them chances to explore and try new things, and see what happens. Be willing to help them find a focus, and to try new directions, and to start over when a first try doesn't work. That's where growth comes from. I think you've grown this semester, and I think you're positioned to help your students grow.
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