As I move forward through my college career and professional life thereafter, I will constantly be using the lessons I have learned throughout this semester in English 112. One day, I hope to be an influential high school English teacher, so to say the least, my life will constantly involve the writing strategies I have learned to adapt to all of my papers. Even for the next three years at Miami, and the following years in grad school, I will continue to use certain skills I have learned in order to succeed in all the writing and reading classes I will take. As I grow as a reader and writer, and even a better critical thinker, I will be able to write meaningful papers, deliver successful lessons to my students, and read students’ papers with an understanding of different forms of writing, which are all important aspects to my future.
I know that in future classes, I will need to successfully read a piece of writing and analyze it in order to find a deeper meaning or discover the ultimate importance. From my three previous papers in this class, I have learned how to make my paper meaningful and effective, while avoiding repetitive ideas and maintaining a strict focus to the thesis. Professors are not looking to read a paper that surrounds its sole purpose with useless words and repeated thoughts, hence why learning to limit excessive information will be of utmost importance to my future. In my Inquiry One paper, I had two detailed sentences starting off my paper that were interesting information, but superfluous in regard to the rest of my paper. To edit this, I completely eliminated the two sentences, thus helping my paper to get straight to the point.
Learning how to write a clear paper and being able to practice this for years to come will not only benefit my own writing, but also my students’ writing in the future. I need to not only be able to teach them how to write a meaningful paper, but also grade their papers thoroughly so they are able to understand how to write a better paper. In order to grade in detail, I have to be confident in my own skills to successfully praise the students’ abilities or correct their wrongdoings. An English teacher has a responsibility to deliver lessons to the students that will clearly help them in their writing. If the teacher has learned in the past how to successfully write a paper, they will be able to help the students manage their writing much easier than someone who never learned how to go in-depth or express a meaningful point. In fact, getting straight to the point while delivering a lecture to my class will be extremely beneficial in maintaining students’ attention.
Additionally, learning how to close read a piece of writing, and also analyze both historical and cultural context of a text will all benefit not only my ability to teach my students, but also my ability to relate to them. Learning these skills in regard to a text is one thing, but adapting these skills to understand my students is a completely new skill. I can use my ability to look beneath the surface, as I would close read a text, to help my students individually discover their ability to write. Furthermore, in using my newly developed cultural and historical analyzing skills, I will be able to relate to students and use their unique culture or family history in order to understand their way of learning. The importance of the skills learned in English 112 will ultimately benefit all students with differing majors; however, the fact that I want to be an English teacher, I can use these learned skills to not only teach my students new writing skills, but also relate to them on a different level.