TELLING OUR STORIES
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/fylc/writing-as-reflection/

The following prompt is not required for our course. If you do choose to take this opportunity, your grade will replace one of our two in-class Reading Quizzes. To get credit, you must post on this FYLC site and comment on two other students’ posts.

It’s mid-semester! We invite you to continue telling your story about becoming a college student at City Tech. Research has shown that first-semester students often worry about their transition in to college and how, eventually, students become comfortable and find a community of people with whom they are close and feel they belong.

Please describe how you have experienced your first months at City Tech. Aim to write 300-500 words and be sure to illustrate your post with examples from your own experiences in classes, seminars, lectures, study groups, and labs. What happened? How did you and others involved think and feel? How did it turn out?

We hope this process will help you think about your transition experience. Once you have posted your own story, please take time to read and comment on at least two of your peers’ stories.

DIRECTIONS:

• To create your post please click the plus (+) sign at the top of the FYLC page!  (or on the banner at the very top of the page click First Year Learning Communities , then select “add new” post from the dashboard) https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/fylc/writing-as-reflection/

• Once you have finished writing your post, select your FYLC faculty member as a category. Note: You are Sears & Sears.
• Read and comment on your peers’ writing. You can post on writing from courses other than ours!
• If you are looking to read stories from one specific FYLC, select a faculty “category” at the bottom of the page.

College writing is a bit more precise than usual writing standards. Arranging paragraphs in a structural manner which include a proper topic sentence or being able to write sentences in the correct form is good but enough. Academic writing requires a certain type of format and depth. Balancing your personal viewpoint with the opinion of others to reason and analyze research is one aspect of college writing. Stating a clear and powerful thesis statement throughout the writing and most importantly convincing the reader with personal perspective and legit facts is also an essential factor. I have learned many new factors of academic writing such as transitional sentences, rhetorical strategies, critical writing, and MLA formatting. The use of my rhetorical techniques has improved which has helped me in developing a writer’s sense and creating a firm argument thoroughly. Transitional sentences are complex and hard to write, and I have struggled with writing proper transitional sentences, but once you get used to writing a lot, transitional sentences become interesting to write. I prefer to write narrative essays over research essays. Research essays are mainly fact based which is why I find them tedious and extensive. Whereas narrative essays are more creative and allow the writer to have more freedom with words. College writing in general influences a person to take control of what others are thinking in words and dominating that.