In class writing revision

Dr. Schonberg,

I am a freshman here at DU who has successfully completed his first quarter. I am writing this to inform you of where I am at as a writer right now, where I was before I came to the University of Denver, and where I have come since then, as well as things I have realized about college writing.

In my first year seminar which related to evolution and fossils, we wrote semi often. In class quizzes were usually written out answers to questions instead of multiple choice. Our midterm and final exams were also papers. Ultimately, in just this one quarter long class I produced approximately ten to fifteen pages of writing. The writing assignments as stated above were all in place of tests or quizzes, so they were ultimately assessments of course material. The assignments related to the methodology of the course in addition to the material. Most of these assignments usually asked me what I thought of a hypothesis and to prove or disproved based on my opinion which was based on the information learned from the material of the course. The writing in this course was not even close to what I had expected of college writing. My expectations of college writing was that it would be typical high school English class style thematic essays except juiced up on steroids by having huge length and vocabulary expectations. Or, in other words, writing assignments I already found boring and dreary that I often struggled and found great difficulty with, but a much harder version of it. So far, college writing has been nothing like this at all. In reality, college writing has been much more simple and down to the point. It is something I am enthusiastic about and can sit down and crank out page after page with little effort. It is so much easier and fun to write when there is more of a purpose to what I am writing that is actually interesting. This has been what the majority of my college writing has been like. I also like how it is so much more precise and efficient because there is so much information to write about, unlike high school writing which is a useless babble fest to attempt to fill five pages with something that has little to no importance or meaning to the writers.

As a university student I have learned a lot about writing, mostly that it isn’t these boring dreary repetitive thematic essays that are nearly identical from one to the other. There is so much variety in college writing and what is expected of it. For example, a business case study paper shares nothing at all in common with these high school style essays, nor does it really share much in common with an analysis of a deliberative discussion or a final exam paper in my fossils and evolutionary theory first year seminar. In college writing it is all tailored for the area and subject matter to write about the material in the most efficient manner possible. What I have realized however, is that I have much to learn about writing, and that so far what I have encountered is only a fraction of what I have yet to see and experience of college writing.

-Nick D’Antonio

WRIT1122 (MW 4:00PM)

1-14-2008