Reading and Writing Skills
Introduction
I have undergone progressive growth in this semester courtesy of the skills inculcated by ESL 400 course work. I have thus overcome a raft of challenges that I had at the beginning of the semester. Particularly, ESL 400 has been critical in shaping my writing and reading skills hence giving me the grit to improve my academic performance. The readings on ESL 400 have given me reshaped insight on how to improve my writing skills and reading techniques, to ensure that I get the best out of the materials I study. To further enhance my skills in reading and writing, I am working on doubling my writing and reading frequencies.
I have made great improvements in my writing capabilities since the beginning of this semester. I have managed to improve in my grammar and gain requisite writing skills like the organization of ideas before putting them on paper. I have abode by Walter Mosley’s argument that if you want to be a writer, you have to write every day. Consistency in writing every day gives one the experience they need in writing. It makes one get used to the monotony of writing and hence develop the passion that inspires the development of good ideas. Mosley goes on to say just like a person goes to a well to draw water on a daily basis, one wakes up each morning and retires to bed each evening when sleep comes to them, the muse for writing develops with time hence one automatically maintains consistency. Writing has also become more interesting since I am able to construct concrete and complete sentences free of fragments and petty grammatical mistakes. The joy that comes along with the formulation of grammatically correct and complete sentences void of dangling modifiers further motivate me into writing more. My goal is, therefore, to maintain consistency in writing every day since I have managed to double my frequency of writing.
My reading skills have also improved greatly. One secret to effective reading that I have learnt is to assess what I know before reading and what I wish to know after reading. This assessment ensures I get the best from reading just as Douglas argues that Effective readers are interactive readers. They connect reading topics to what they know in order to activate their brain schema. Interactive reading involves the use of strategies like annotations and questions. Questions aid one in remembering and recalling what they have read, hence increasing the retention capacity of acquired knowledge. Annotations, on the other hand, aids one in gauging whether the content they are about to read suits them and hence establish their goals for the reading. The application of these strategies has aided in rejuvenating and boosting my psyche for reading. I have, therefore doubled my reading abilities and can, therefore, read more content on a daily basis as compared to before. As Susan Sontag argues, reading is a vocational skill whose constant practise makes one an expert. By constantly reading, I am gradually becoming an expert in reading where I never consider reading as a daunting task, but rather a normal task. Going forward, I would like to maintain consistency in reading and expanding my capacity more.
Conclusion
ESL 400 has been critical in improving my reading and writing skills. I have doubled my frequency of writing and learnt to assess what I know and what I wish to know before reading. These insights gained have, therefore aided in improving my general performance on the course. These skills are also closely related. According to Susan, reading skills precede writing skills since the love for reading is what motivates one into becoming a writer.
Works Cited
Mosley, Walter. “Walter Mosley: For Authors, Fragile Ideas Need Loving”. Archive.Nytimes.Com, 2000, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/070300mosley-writing.html.
Sontag, Susan. “WRITERS ON WRITING; Directions: Write, Read, Rewrite. Repeat Steps 2 And 3 As Needed.”. Nytimes.Com, 2000, https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/books/writers-on-writing-directions-write-read-rewrite-repeat-steps-2-and-3-as-needed.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm.