Journal week 5 ENG 220 week 5 Journal Entry

Journal Entry #5

When I was 14 years old I had a diary. In my dairy I would record routine events each day, including meals, classes and drama with friends. The journal I have been keeping is more effective and meaningful than any diary I have ever used. Journal writing has made a great improvement in my ability to express my feelings, thoughts and reflection skills in writing. I have been able to create more depth in my writing with the journal writing assignments in this course. What I enjoyed most about the journal assignments were the topics; each week the topics were meaning for substantial writing assignments that challenged my writing capabilities. In contrast a diary is continuous rambling about nothing and is not as meaningful. I want to continue my journal writing to strengthen my writing skills. I want to stray from a diary, so I took advice from my older sister on how to start my journal writing beyond the course. She told me I need to ask myself questions such as “What do I want to write about? How do I feel? What do I want? My sister also says it’s important to reflect on my life and explore my feelings and thoughts as a way to begin my journal writing. In addition, I should continue to read books and reflect on what I have learned and how it relates to my life.

My personal writing steps are: 1. thinking about my topic and writing down notes. 2. Researching my topic for addition notes. 3. Start an informal outline. 4. First draft. 5. Second draft- have someone I trust review, correct any mistakes. 6. Final draft- edit; should be perfect with no errors. In the future I would like to spend more time in proofreading and editing, I want to have a peer group that I can utilize for proofreading. Lastly, I would like to challenge my creative thinking skills and spend more time in the prewriting stage using different techniques to prewrite. I use to struggle with creating writing assignments even with my 6 step process. However, throughout the course I have improved in crafting sentences. Sentences are the core of paragraphs and I have been able to improve this skills, in turn creating better writing assignments. My practice skills with the weekly labs have greatly impacted my writing both personally and academically. I will apply all of the lessons I have learned throughout this class for future courses.