Dear Future English 110 Students,
I took this course as a requirement in my major; I think everybody has to finish this class to pursue a bachelor degree. At the beginning of this quarter, I was nervous about this class, because I am an international student, and I am not very confident in my English writing skills. Also several sophomores told me that they had terrible grades of English 110, and that makes me even worried about my own grade. However, I am telling you now, English 110 is a interesting and helpful class. About the grade, if you treat it seriously, the grade won’t disappoint you.
English writing is a basic skill for everybody, and it is helpful to anybody in all kinds of fields. For instance, I am an engineering student. In my opinion, engineering class does not require any writing stuff, however, it does. When in Engineering 183, I was assigned memos for each lab, and there was one memo that turned out the instructor did not only care about your lab data and result, but also how you describe and explain the reasons. And unfortunately, I got a few points off, because several sentences in my memo did not quite make sense to the TA. I find the problem that is I did not know how to use some sentence format correctly and abuse some words. The TA suggested me going to the writing center for help. I was shocked. I never thought even a engineering assignment requires me to go to the writing center. This is what I mean that English writing is important in every field.
Back to this course, I found writing is not that torturing as long as I know how to find materials to make the paper more comprehensive and inclusive. This is the goal that English 110 would help you to achieve. I enjoy the way that the course English 110 teaches us: step-by-step. First is the primary source analysis, which asks me to find the primary source that is related to the issue or topic that I am interested in. And then move to secondary source integration, which requires me to find another source to support and enrich the paper we were working on before, and finally adding some my insight thoughts to make it become academic research paper. These steps taught how to work on a research paper step by step, and I think it works all the time.
Moreover, this class does not only tell me how to write academically, but also publicly.
The commonplace essay is another practice assignment that tells me the way to express my thoughts publicly and not that serious. The three elements for commonplace essay: timely, relevant and compelling are also useful to remember for the future public writings.
In all, English 110 is not easy, but it is useful to all the students. I think that’s why it is marked as a requirement for all majors.
Best,
Yuwen Sun
