writing
My writing story resembles a turtle's pace.
From my early years at school, I did not to work on literature’s subjects; excelling in scientific subjects was satisfactory to me. When I started my semester at UPP, I was very anxious about the new language with all its skills and the difficulty to pass the exams. Academic writing was the subject that makes most me worried about. Every time the teacher asked me to write, I felt like the world is on its ending; I felt that someone was pushing me in the ocean and I must survive without a life-saver. I already knew that later in the university I should write long passages to answer questions in quizzes as well as research papers in almost every course. I don't want to stay unable to express my ideas and information; I don’t want to lose my grades for structure mistakes nor for weak vocabulary. Thinking about writing essays was increasing my bundle of nerves because I used to write everything with symbols and abbreviations. I was struggling between the hatred of writing in English and my need to improve my language skills. However, the fear of failure was the best motivator for me to focus on writing classes, to study, and to practice as much as I can. All I wanted was to learn the good way of writing to express my ideas. Thus, I’ve accepted the challenge and have worked hard to achieve my target.
This semester, when I was waiting to get my first graded draft corrected, I thought that I’m going to get a high grade. However, seeing my pages lighted up with red pen,just like a Christmas tree ruined my self-assurance. However, one day, I told myself that I have two choices: either to put effort to improve my writing or to give up and fail the course. These words enhanced my belief in my capacity and progressively rebuilt my confidence. Although the feedback toward my essays is hard and negative most of the time, it is constructive and has helped me improve. In fact, some comments such as “better, you still can improve,” encourage me to give my best. Also, I’ve realized that the comments in each sentence are constructive not only for my structure but also my critical thinking; they orient my writing style into the positive way. Moreover, setting a goal means a lot for me. It means my will to improve and furthermore to reach the excellence. Hence, I decided to take the structure and writing sessions more seriously, to take notes, and double my effort. I review the chapters at home more than once. I read many samples of all the types of paragraphs and collect idea, expressions, and transitions. Then, I write journals and paragraphs about any topic. Sometimes, I let my English-educated friend help me edit my paragraphs. I was shy about letting her correcting my work because in school and high school I used to teach my peers, not the other way round. As I now follow my teacher's comments, my grades are improving progressively and I can write more comfortably and confidently. My belief in my capability and my ability to improve were rebuilding my self-confidence; accepting the fact that my English level was a bit low and working to improve my language skills were my first steps to progress. I’m proud of myself and what I have to do is to keep working to get better results.
Furthermore, the writing course has taught me much more than writing correctly. In fact, it has given me lessons in life: accepting to work in fields that I don’t like, giving every subject the work that it deserves, overcoming every failure. Now, I’m not going to ruin what I’ve done through these two semesters. I’m going to read more to expand my knowledge and write more until I become fully satisfied with my level, vocabulary, language. Receiving such scholarship has demanded a lot of work in the past years, and my dreams are much further than passing the U.P.P. Thus, now, I’m going to fight to make my current struggle a success story later.
The first draft is the base of all perfect work.
Aren't the same?
This is a sample of my writings
Weaknesses of the Exams
What if a student who fails most of his exams grow up to become a genius? What if a student has failed most of his tests at school and later succeeds in the life? Throughout the history, many people have come, succeeded in their lives, and gathered a huge wealth. However, if we go deeply through their biography, we find that they have failed at school and university. For instance, the inventor of the electricity Thomas Edison and the originator of Microsoft Steve Jobs are the best proofs. Unbelievably, they have been considered as stupid scholars regarding their low grades. Here, we should stop, think, and rebuild our beliefs about the educational system which is based on the exams and tests. What if exams which are deciding the future of a student are misevaluating him? Some people, especially educators, believe that the tests and exams should be the only way to assess the student’s knowledge of the course material. However, despite the point of view that the exams force the student to study and acquire knowledge, they should not be the only way to evaluate a student’s performance at the university because the tests aren’t fair for all types of students nor reliable to measure the acquiring level.
The unfairness of the exams is the first reason of why they should not be the only way to judge a student’s performance at the university. In other words, having only one way to judge students who differ according to their learning types is unjust. Indeed, the exams don’t measure the practical skills such as the creativity and the ability to apply the information on projects. The subjective exams test the theoretical skills of a student. This is unfair to the students who are good in practicing in the laboratories by using creative ways. When we want to compare the grades of students, the one who is good in memorization gets higher grades than the one who proves an excellence in the projects. Although some students can pass a course by getting partial credits for lab work, they don’t have the potential to apply the material on projects. For example, engineers might pass some courses by the accumulation of partial credits. These students who have no problem solved correctly can get higher grades than the ones who have one problem that is very well solved. Moreover, the ability of cheating increases the grades of students who don’t study more than the ones who study, forget, and don’t know how to cheat. Furthermore, the essay exams are unfair for the student who doesn’t have the proficient writing skills. Although he is creative and brilliant, he might fail the exam because he wasn’t able to express the information on paper. He will get low grades because of the mistakes in spelling and structure.
In addition to the unfairness, the second reason of why graded exams should not be the only evaluator to a student is their unreliability. Indeed, the exam grades don’t assess the student’s knowledge and understanding. First, the essay exam grades aren’t 100% definitive. According to a study, a student, under pressure with limited time, can’t write and organize his thoughts and information correctly. Thus, he might lose grades on structure and grammar mistakes because of his poor writing quality although he has a good background information about the topic. Also, the grading system of the essay changes from an instructor to another and sometimes by the same one. Moreover, the objective questions don’t test the true level of the student’s knowledge. It provides him with the opportunity to guess the correct answer; he may choose it for wrong reasons which have no clues to his understanding. In fact, the right answer might be the only grammatically appropriate to the main body, the longest or the most qualified one. For instance, at the University Preparatory Program (UPP), some students get almost all the multiple-choice exercises correct without having any idea about the information because the wrong ones were illogical. Furthermore, the grades given to short answer questions don’t express the student’s level of analyzing; they show his ability to memorize. In other words, he might get a high grade by the accumulation of partial credits on just writing the theories.
Yet some educators believe that exams are reliable because they are forcing the student to study and acquire the necessary knowledge. They claim that when grades are going to decide whether he is going to pass the course or not, a student is going to study seriously. However, this is not true because the fear of tests stops him from improving. Indeed, studies show that 40% of the students start memorizing the material only one day before the exam and write them in the tests. This leads to decline in analytical and critical thinking skills because they are not motivated to complete research. In addition, the student focuses only on grades. Thus, he tries multiple ways to get higher grades, such as cheating. This means that the student has not focused on acquiring the necessary information and he has destroyed his creativity and his ability of coming up with innovative ideas
Therefore, the tests and exams should not be the only way to assess a student’s performance at the university because tests and exams are unreliable, unfair, and demotivating. If Thomas Edison had stopped his work and believed that he is very stupid, we wouldn’t have the electricity now. The first aim of education is to spread knowledge not to stop students from improving. Hence, students should have different evaluating methods and grading criteria to evaluate their learning and understanding.
I am in love with this email.
Thank you Ms katia for the motivation.