Spring
2011
ENGL 1301
Section # 215
Herrera
D
Sanchez
Student’s Banner ID #
Diagnostic Essay
Incoming as a college freshman at the age of seventeen I’m assuming that my strengths and
weaknesses will be different than students whom are older. I hope to gain more confidence and
knowledge throughout the course. The experiences I have had will help me through this course
because without taking them I wouldn’t have gained the knowledge I have gained. Taking this
course I hope to become a better writer and learn to enjoy writing even more than I already do.
My strengths in writing vary from grammar to writing well about topics that do not
interest me. Sometimes one must write about a topic that is uninteresting as I had to do in
history. For me history is not as interesting as other subjects so writing about it was a challenge
but I became able to write about the topics for my class and receive “A” letter grades on my
essays. Though I am not great at grammar I do believe that I am good at it. I know how to spell
correctly. If I do not know how to spell a word I do look it up instead of assuming and I find
ways to remember how to spell it. Spelling is very important to me as well as the correct ways of
using “their” and “there” and “they’re.” It does bother me to have these used incorrectly and I
see in writing that even though it is stressed many people still use them incorrectly. My
weaknesses are sentence structures. I cannot remember the names of the different sentence
structures. In my English three class we were taught the types and the functions of these
sentences and although everyone seemed to memorize them I could not. I recognize the functions
the problem is I cannot remember the names and so I get confused with what is what.
I am very excited to learn a new course but I am as well afraid. I’m afraid I will not be a
good writer and I will fail the class but I think that is normal to fear. I really enjoy writing out of
every subject I have ever taken. In this course I hope to learn different styles of writing and when
it is appropriate to use them. One never knows when they are going to have to write an essay and
for whom it will be addressed to so it is very good to be able to learn different styles.
Every course I have taken of English has helped. I think every class just gets added and
added and it’s like building blocks. Maybe one might not have learned a lot in a class but there
are always one or two things that get carried onto the next class. In my English three class that I
took last semester I learned how to write an argumentative essay which I had not known before.
I think in the younger ages one learns how to write a basic essay and grammar is greatly stressed
which comes in handy for writing. Some negative writing experiences I have experienced are
when students are asked to write an essay for the TAKS test. The topics in all the TAKS tests
never seem to relate to me and it is very difficult for me to get an idea of what to write. Every
essay I have ever written for the TAKS has been a lie. I have done well because I’ve received
commended in them. A positive experience is when I wrote an essay for my first history 1301
exam and I got an “A”
I hope to learn how to become a better writer and how to use essays in different ways.
Writing so far has helped in many ways and I know that just taking this course will help.