KIM JEONG EUN/MY EXPERIENCE WITH WRITING/THUR 1-3PM

I took Intermediate English Writing class last year, which was quite challenging for me in that the it required us to use a blog. For me writing was with a pencil and something only a teacher ever sees my writing and gives a comment or feedback. But it was totally different in the class. My writing was posted online and it was open to everyone in the class so that they could see my writing and gave me their feedback. Of course, I also read other students' writings and gave them my feedback. It was so embarrassing at first to comment and to be commented. It was as if I was standing all naked in front of others and being judged with any armor. But after a few weeks, it turned out to be somewhat quite interesting and helping. Seeing others' writings gave me various ways of approaching the same topic or issue. I could see different writing styles, point of view, and even different vocabulary use than me. That helped me to see how my writing was limited with the same grammar, same sentence and same vocabulary. And the comments from classmates were also helping. They told me how my writing was like and sometimes suggested me better options. By getting comments from several students, not just a single comment from a professor, I could try many different ways to develop my writing.

Aside from weekly homework, the professor assigned us a final essay, which was to write a thorough report about a topic that we chose ourselves. We could choose whichever topic we wanted and I chose to write about the Korean animation industry, which was my biggest interest at the moment. I enjoyed doing a research on it and writing about it because it was something I was interested in. I did more and more research and really wanted to wrtie a good report. Choosing my own topic myself really did work for me. It was less homework-like and less burdensome. And I had to write my own report again this semester, I think I'd go for the Syrian refugees this time.