During my high-school years, English transformed from a subject that always took a backseat to a subject that really mattered. It was only in my freshmen year that I understood the power of English, as a language. I learnt how to express myself and try to persuade others through the writing activities that were thrown towards me. My reading and thinking abilities were enhanced greatly after reading the writings of great writers that included David Henry Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. However, the people I just mentioned were solely limited to “in-class” reading. Outside of class, I enjoy reading everything from Harry Potter to some random autobiography. Call it a quirk, but I often like reading autobiographies of the “not-so-famous” people. It keeps reminding me that everyone, famous or not, has something great, inspiring and interesting to share, teach or narrate.
Going back to my experience with writing in English, I had a perfectly organized syllabus throughout my high-school years. Freshman and sophomore years were dedicated towards story telling or writing narratives; Persuasive writing was reserved for my junior year and informative writing was my topic of focus in my senior year. Among all the writing work that I’ve done, persuasive and informative writing fascinates me the most. I feel that they both complement each other beautifully! Bolstering ones persuasive piece of writing with information often makes it seem more “correct” or believable.
In our school, we also had the option of taking theatre as a part of our English curriculum, for extra credits. Taking up theatre, I feel, was one of the best decisions of my life. Not only did it teach me important leadership and teamwork skills, it also gave me an insight into how words can be translated into actions.
I’d like to conclude by saying that my experience with English, so far, has been exhaustive yet rewarding. I hope that, during my time at Purdue University, I learn more about this great language.
I completely agree with your statement that English used to take a backseat in the early years of high school and then all of a sudden it became one of the most important subjects. I remember spending a lot of time on papers to make them as organized as possible, it drove me nuts. However, I would always be proud of the finished product because I knew others could follow my ideas. It is definitely a time commitment subject and there is a reason why. If our ideas weren’t put together, we’d live in a confusing world. On the other hand, high school English for me was never really defined by the types of papers we wrote. For example, Junior year was not just persuasive and senior year was not just narrative. Each year of English consisted of a variety of types of papers so as to not bore us and to keep us writing. However, the significant change that I did notice from freshman to senior English is the formatting of the essays. It went from the standard 5 paragraph essay to whatever length you felt it needed to be to make your point. ENGL 106
ReplyDeleteI never had a completely organized syllabus for my English classes, or any of my high school classes for that matter. The course material never really changed from year to year, either. We always had reading, poetic analysis, writing, and occasionally spelling or vocabulary lessons. In my junior year of English, we also studied the literary works of Henry David Thoreau. We also listened to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in one of my English classes, I just don’t remember if it was my sophomore or junior year. I have also read some of Mahatma Gandhi’s works, but that was in my Modern World History class, and we didn’t take much time to study it. I think that this English class at Purdue will be a welcomed change because we will be focusing solely on composition, instead of covering a wide variety of subject matters. (ENGL 106)
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