Jiayi Fan
UWP 1
Assignment 1 Final Draft
Word Count: 1086
Don’t let beauty go
Essays were like mountains for me before I came to college. I felt very stressed
when starting to compose essays since I thought nothing was worth mentioning. I
usually missed the most beautiful parts of my daily life when writing essays. However,
writing was no longer a difficult problem for me after Joshua, my Workload 57
instructor, came. He was like a mentor for me, guiding me to find my genuine feelings
in the process of writing. Thanks to his guidance, I finally found the true meaning of
and the better writing method for writing a long essay. We do not need to cover
everything but should focus on one small subject around our life and deepen its core
meaning. In other words, we need to find topics around us and try to explain them
clearly in detail. Do not let the most beautiful things slip from our fingers!
Joshua used his unique teaching method to let me really enjoy writing. One day,
Josh assigned an elusive topic about whether facts are stronger than memoires and
raised questions about it to help us get started. However, no one could come up with
any ideas immediately since the topic was too abstract for us. I almost fell asleep
when finding nothing to come up with. Like most teachers would do at the beginning,
he reread the whole reading and left some minutes for us to think about the ideas.
Seeing we still could not come up with any idea of the essay, then, he asked us to go
outside and walk around the Coffee House at the Memorial Union to catch the most
common details around us. At first, I felt much surprised because I had not met any
teachers who used this “unrelated” method to teach students. Also, I regarded it as
insane and futile since I passed by the Coho many times everyday but still found
nothing interesting. Meanwhile, he required us to take a piece of paper and pencil to
write down what we saw in the Coho. So, I forced myself to find different and funny
things I had never seen at glance. When rambling in the Coho with the “heavy” task
Joshua assigned, I unexpectedly caught the unique things I had never noticed. For
example, I saw how cashiers saved time during the rush hours and saw many
countries’ famous food sections in the Coho. I came to realize that anything in our life
could be writing material. When we observed the world carefully, we will find more
fun in writing.
When we returned to the classroom, Joshua asked us to share our experience
from the Coho, discussing what we had seen and how we felt about the busy morning.
I rethought my methods of writing and became aware of my past woes. There is no
need to cover everything nor illustrate our ideas all at one time. By paying more
attention to the petty things around us, we can write essays more personally and
successfully, and shorten the distance between our audience and us as well. Before
Joshua gave us this writing tip, I was tired of writing and wrote too broadly
unnecessarily. However, the problem was that I tried too hard to explain everything
but never explained anything clearly. After finding what my problem was, I started to
think about the correct writing thoughts. We usually discussed writing skills and
essay’s revisions via Email. From then on, when I had no idea of writing or could not
write in the right track, I would send the Email to turn the help for Joshua’s.
Sometimes, the advice was even longer than my essay paragraph! He was no longer
just a teacher for me, but my friend in writing. He let me know when writing essays,
the most important thing we should emphasize is to simplify the topic and give the
audience a clear thesis. If nothing pumps up, trying to integrate personal stories is a
wise choice for college writing.
Joshua gave me a real experience of how to catch wonderful things and put them
in essays. I still remembered the great impact he left on me when I finished my
Workload 57 final exam. The topic was about whether competence is important in
one’s personal development. At first, I felt this topic was too wide and I could not
easily catch the main meaning. Nonetheless, I revived Joshua’s words: “ trying to
focus on the most tiny parts of your life to illustrate your points”. Then, I began the
essay with my personal competence story in the introduction paragraph, which
seemed more understandable to readers. Finally I successfully wrote my essay and
passed the course.
Therefore, writing is never an issue when you find the right technique. A good
essay does not need so many decorative words but the true feeling of the author. At
the beginning of Joshua’s class, I felt at loss and annoyed when finding nothing worth
writing, whereas Joshua patiently gave us effective instructions to help us improve
our writing skills. For instance, he insisted that we should accumulate our vocabulary
since the word choice problem was a big issue for international students. Also, he
mentioned that every sentence and every conclusion needed an explanation. As long
as we wrote a conclusion or stated our own ideas, it was very essential to explain
them clearly. We did not need to write everything, but we should try to write one
piece of small issue perfectly. From then on, the problem, which puzzled me for a
long time, disappeared. I was no longer worried about what to say in essays nor
whether my thesis was too broad to understand. The whole essay was centered to the
core story I made in body paragraphs. Joshua not only taught me how to combine my
personal stories with the thesis but also changed my wrong thinking of writing. Thus,
when I started to compose my UWP 1 essays this quarter, I felt more relaxed and
refreshed since the right writing method had changed my whole writing habits. It
greatly simplified the heavy writing workload.
Till today, I admire Joshua’s writing suggestions. Thanks to his tips, my writing
skills have been rapidly improved. He is like a wise tutor, pointing the shortcuts of
writing to me and lifts my writing skills so much. He took me through both the gate of
university writing and of American thinking. Joshua Fernandez—a great teacher who
means a lot to me.