Jeremy Diaz
Eric Drown
English 122
November 28, 2018
English 122
Coming from high school I believed every paper needed to have an introduction, three body paragraphs and a conclusion. I also thought it needed a formal introduction that would lead its way into the main thesis which would be stated at the end of the introduction. These were the things my teachers in high school had taught me, so it was what I began to start my first paper with. Entering my first class of English I was a little nervous. I thought that I would have to increase the vocabulary in my papers and write a lot more than I did in high school. I eventually learned when reading Habits of the Creative Mind that I would have to “unlearn old habits” and instead just write. The reason why I had to unlearn these habits was because they hindered my ability to get my opinions across as well as begin to learn more when reading and writing. By cutting these habits out I began to feel freer when writing. I also learned that summary of an article or story is a good thing to integrate into papers. It provides the reader with more background and helps with allowing them to form their own opinion.
Habits of the Creative Mind also taught me about note taking. Habits states “you will begin to write about stuff you don’t know about” (23) when note taking while reading. At first, I didn’t understand how this would help me, but I did it anyway. I eventually realized that because I was taking notes, I was processing the information I was reading and translating it onto paper. Because of this I didn’t have to go back and dig through an article for quotes and it was much more efficient when writing my paper.
In Habits of the Creative Mind it mentioned working on 7 habits. “The best writing develops from the exercise of habits of the mind that include curiosity, creativity, attractiveness, openness to new ideas, persistence, flexibility and reflectiveness” (1). I found myself using all of these throughout the semester within the different projects and essays I’ve written. My curiosity has grown when exploring new topics. I’ve learned that there are no boundaries to where I can go in order to get my questions answered or formulate a new question. My creativity when writing has always been pretty good, but I’ve recently been adding a lot of personal experience into my paper which was something I wasn’t allowed to do in high school, and this has allowed me to be more creative with my papers. I’ve learned that a paper can contain all the components necessary and still be incomplete because topics are messy and all over the place. By keeping everything in the right order the paper is more attractive when reading. In this class we have read many articles, and this has allowed me to improve my openness to new ideas. I was introduced to so many different points of view that if I didn’t expand my openness my paper would suffer. Though I have gotten a little lazy at times over the term I have also learned to be persistent with my work. I know that if I push myself and stay motivated while trying the best I can then my product will result in something good. My flexibility was also improved in this course. I’ve always had to write about books I’ve read in class when I was in high school. In this course I was able to explore other topics that I liked and some I’ve never read about. This made the class a lot more fun and helped with my learning experience. Lastly, I have truly learned to reflect on my own work and find ways to improve so I am never content with where my work is currently at. There is always room to improve and things to work on.
When going through a couple of my journal entries from throughout the term I can see how I have progressed over the semester. I can see how in the beginning of school year I looked at things one way. When working on prompts I had a lot of similar responses to things. I also learned to give my opinion on some of the prompts. I found myself saying things like “I hated working on formulating a question.” I also said “the first essay was more enjoyable” when talking about expanding on a question. I can see how my work and ideas have progressed over the term and didn’t realize this until now. While I have come this far there is still more room to grow.
I think using some quotes from the Habits of the Creative Mind book might help you better and more accurately explain how learning about those habits reshaped your expectations of college reading and writing. I’d also love to see evidence from your early informal essays and Let’s Write entries show up in this segment of the essay – maybe as evidence of the process by which you worked to develop the habits?
*attractiveness* isn’t one of the habits of the creative mind