In my personal experience, trying to find the right voice when I write is always a challenge for me. I will first look at the prompt and the style of writing the assignment is asking for before deciding what kind of voice to use. I have found that my favorite genre of writing is exploratory because there are fewer formalities and rules when writing. I am also able to explore a topic of interest which encourages me to write more. Because English is not my first language, I often struggle to develop a sense of style when I write because it could go from explaining to arguing and my voice jumps around. I have to constantly remind myself to stick to one voice and have to rewrite a lot of my work to ensure I am following the prompt. There are always a lot of grammatical errors in my writing since I am trying to translate certain sentences or phrases from one language to another and this often discourages me from writing and finding my voice. My biggest fear is being judged for my writing due to the struggles and this prevents me from further developing my voice. A way I encourage myself to keep writing and not worry about making mistakes is by reminding myself that writing is a growing skill and that every mistake I make is a way to do better than the last. With this changed mindset it pushes me to try different voices and see what I like in my writing. I hope to eventually find a voice that I feel satisfied with and can consistently use.

Based on the reading I found that poetry has a lot more hidden messages and plays on words that have to be reread several times in order to understand the message whereas prose is more straightforward. Depending on the type of poetry there may be repetitions, similes or metaphors that makes the reading harder to understand. When reading poetry like Mary Olivers, there are a lot of personifications and repetition that make the reader think more abstractly, allowing their experience to be more expressive and creative because the readers can come up with their own interpretation of the reading. As for prose it is more direct and straightforward that makes reading the material easy to follow and understand exactly what the message the author is trying to convey. I find myself leaning more towards prose because I don’t like the style of writing in poems. I find that repetitions or rhyme schemes make it boring to read because you are not just reading to understand but you are also trying to find hidden meanings and a lot of the words used in poems are words, I do not know the meaning of. An example of having to find hidden meanings would be, “He keeps his prayer under his tongue.” (P.204 Oliver) I was confused by the hidden meaning and what message the author was trying to convey with this sentence. After reading the poem a second time I realized what she meant by reading the previous sentence and understood that the prayer was for the hawk that the catbird had been watching.

What I learned from these readings is that writing is a dynamic activity that enhances and sharpens your thinking and is not just a tool to record your thoughts. Writing forces, you to structure your thoughts logically. It forces you to put your ideas in order, making them easier to understand, both for yourself and others. By doing this it makes complex concepts easier to understand more effectively. For instance, in class today we started with a broad concept about what Salesses purpose for his writing was then slowly narrowed it down. Writing can also lead to personal growth by setting track of goals and reflecting on it later. Seeing it written down on paper helps visually see the growth as well. Growing up in an immigrant household I was rarely praised for any accomplishments. My parents never praised me for any academic awards, sports achievement or winning club positions and would always compare me to others and because of that I never felt like I did enough, or I could always do better. It wasn’t until I started writing my college essays and applying to schools that by writing down all my awards and accomplishments that I realized I have accomplished a lot. It took me seeing my accomplishments written out for me to recognize my achievements and growth. Writing has never been my strong suit as I still struggle with grammar and other writing skills however, it still has sharpened my knowledge and skills and showed me a different way of thinking.

As a writer my main goal is for my writing to be clear and concise. In past writing assignments I have found that I struggle with how much information to give and how long a summary should be which makes my writing difficult to be concise. I tend to either add too many details or not enough and when I go over and edited my work, I find myself stuck between which information to keep and which to throw out. My writing tends to drag on with no clear focus on what my topic is until the middle then feels rushed and short towards the end. When I write, I want readers to be intrigued by the topic I chose and want to continue to learn more about my chosen topic through my writing. By keeping it clear and concise it will allow readers to learn all the important details about my topic in a quick and easy way. I hope to achieve this by learning writing skills that can help hook them in and keep them interested. I am here because I hope this course will strengthen my skills as a writer and also improve my grammar and writing skills. I hope by the end of this course that I have thoroughly learned and understand the different writing styles and have at least mastered either expository, descriptive, narrative or persuasive style.