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Ismenia Villanueva

Dr Gibney

English 101

26 April 2021

Hey English 102, I’m Ready For You!

If you were to ask me back in February how I felt about starting English 101 I

would have said, “Do I really want to go back to college?” The anxiety that came with

having to write papers and receiving feedback was one of the top things that scared me

out of going back to school again. Now, a couple of months later and my attitude

towards Writing has flipped completely and become a favorite. Learning and

understanding the ten Writing concepts is what has helped me come to a realization on

what writing is or does that has helped change my mindset on it.

The first time I read the list of Ten Writing Concepts I was convinced that some of

them had to be false, especially number one: Writing is not natural. For some reason I

had always had the idea that all professional writers wrote with such ease. It was not

until I read the piece “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott that I began to understand that

an author's work does not flow out of them naturally when they sit down and write. After

she explains how much work and rewrites many authors' clock in Lamott opens the last

paragraph by stating “ Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts.” This

really helped with coming to the realization that I am not a bad writer because the words

don’t pour out, I just hadn’t given myself the opportunity of making any of my work great

by revising and rewriting. Understanding this concept was the first step to a possibility of

becoming a better writer.

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The next writing concept that changed my opinion on the subject is number nine:

Failure can be important to one’s writing development. This concept became a sort of

motto for me throughout the semester and I would remind myself of it after any

assignment or essay that I submitted. Waiting to receive notes from Dr. Gibney or

feedback from my peers always made me nervous and anxious but it helped being

reminded that it was a necessary step in order to improve. Before the semester I

thought of the idea of someone criticizing my work as a chance of being told I was dumb

or that I did a bad job on an assignment. Now I recognize that even if I were told I did

something incorrectly I need to hear that in order to develop better writing skills.

Another one of the concepts that helped change my opinion and process of

writing is number eight: A written text is an object outside oneself that can be changed,

developed and improved. Ever since I can remember I was stuck on the idea that my

first draft was as good as it was going to get. In the piece “The Maker's Eye: Revising

Your Own Manuscripts” Donald Murray starts it off by telling his readers that a first draft

should not be a final draft. The part of this reading that made me reconsider my process

of writing was the statement Murray made of “When a draft is completed, the job of

writing can begin.” I now understand that I could make my work better by putting in

more effort into it after completing the first draft.

Being near the end of English 101 I can say that my attitude towards it is not at

all what it was in the beginning. Unlike before the semester started I have a more

positive view of it and genuine enjoyment of seeing the improvement in my writing so

far. I hope that all students who take English 101 get the opportunity of learning about

the Ten Writing Concepts because personally it has helped bring a newfound
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confidence in the subject. Now I’m excited to apply what I have learned into English

102, something I never thought I would say!

Authors Note
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Writing this essay came with lots of excitement from me. I have grown so much

as a writer these last couple of months and the opportunity to explain how it happened

made the topic of the assignment so much fun for me. I got the opportunity to realize

that I am much better at writing than I thought and that was all thanks to learning about

the writing concepts and reading great pieces by Murray and Lamott.