College Writing Review

Since my major is Computer Engineering, I’m not required to take many writing classes beyond freshman English. None, actually. I opted to take Expository writing instead during my second semester of freshman year, and that was super fun! The subject was Counterculture, which I hadn’t previously known much about. I learned a lot about various countercultural movements and ideas, and we had a lot of freedom with essay topics, which I loved. One of my favorite essays I have written throughout college was an analysis of the Disney short Paperman. I don’t usually enjoy writing essays, but I enjoyed that one.

I’m also taking Honors courses here, so last year I took a Perspectives class on Banned Books. That class was very fun and engaging. The readings were interesting, and again, we had a lot of options when it came to selecting essay topics. I remember I had to write an essay about American Psycho, and I hated that book, so I had next to no desire to write about it. But, I was able to just focus my attention analyzing the music chapters, and I was able to turn out a really good essay, relative to other things I have written. I have noticed a big difference in the quality of my writing when I have more choice regarding the subject.

This class was a really great opportunity to expand my writing skills. I have never taken a creative writing class before, so this was very new for me. There was so much freedom in the writing assignments for this class. During the weekly storytelling assignments, I liked that I was able to retell stories from the reading any way I wanted. One week I retold a story through young bears hiking up a mountain. Another week, I represented the mountains from a legend as blanket forts. I used my imagination in a way I so far haven’t in college writing, and that was really cool. I especially loved the storybook assignment. It was so fun to make my own website and find images for it. I got to get really creative trying to relate stories of Vishnu avatars to intergalactic travel. I wrote bold characters and narrated stories as a gruff, old spaceship captain. It was sort of challenging, but it was very, very different from homework for my other classes, so it was a welcome challenge. I’m proud of the storybook I’ve turned out. This was a cool project, for sure.

This was the image from the cover page of my storybook. Web: Pixabay