For the Sophomore Year
Upon beginning my sophomore year of college, I have made a definite decision to be an English major. With this decision, I have formulated a few goals that I wish to accomplish by the time that I graduate from Monmouth College.

Goals:

• To completely familiarize myself with the proper MLA format
• To greatly diminish or negate grammatical, structural, and punctuation errors
• To further extend my knowledge of canonical and historical literature
• To hone my writing skills and writing process
• To familiarize myself with the many different styles and techniques of writing available

Although some of these goals are not too specific, I believe that they all can and will be essential to me and my future career should I choose to put my English skills to use.

Regarding familiarizing myself with the MLA format, I already know many aspects of the format, yet wish to have a complete knowledge of it. While I have my MLA handbook, I would like to eventually be able to write a paper in proper MLA format without having to refer to the handbook. If I completely knew all aspects of the proper format, I could eliminate many minor errors in my papers. This would also benefit my grades.

Since I am an English major, people expect me to not make grammatical, structural, or punctuation errors often. I would like to be able to meet this expectation. By diminishing my errors in these areas, my education would show greatly and be rather impressive. Making small grammatical, structural, or punctuation errors could cause me to not seem very smart or well educated in this area. By wishing to diminish these errors, would like to be viewed as the properly educated woman that I am.

In terms of my knowledge of canonical and historical literature, I would like to greatly expand my knowledge. While some if this literature can be rather dull and long, I believe that it all will benefit me in my studies. There are references everywhere to many different canonical and historical literatures. I would like to be able to fully recognize these references and be able to understand their meanings. By studying canonical literature, I would also get a better grasp on history and what was valued in writing. This would be very beneficial to me should I ever decide to write.

Regarding wishing to hone my writing skills and writing process, I would like to be able to sit down and write anything that I wish. I would like to work on the idea of relating what I am thinking in my head to writing it down on paper. Also, I would like to improve my writing process. In high school, I never had a definite plan for a writing process. After having written many papers my freshman year at Monmouth College, I have learned that a writing process is a very valuable commodity to a writer or English major. I would like to establish a particular writing process that I would follow each time that I wrote a paper or article so that my writing would be consistent. By having a writing process, I would also have an easier time in writing a paper because I would know how to go about writing it.

My last goal for myself as an English major involves familiarizing myself with the different techniques and styles of writing. There are many different techniques and styles of writing in the world today. I would like to be able to recognize these different styles and techniques and know how they are accomplished. I would also like to have a firm grasp on them and be able to write using these different techniques and styles.

Having experienced one year at Monmouth College, I feel that I have already begun to work on all of these different goals. Yet, I also feel that T have just begun to recognize what I need to work on in order to achieve these goals. Through each paper that I write, I hope to slowly and gradually work towards my goals and aim to complete all of these goals by the time that I graduate from Monmouth College.

The main area that I find to challenge me in my English studies involves starting my writing process. I often have an idea in my head of what I want to write on, yet I have trouble starting the paper and organizing my thoughts. It seems that all of the areas that I wish to cover in my paper are jumbled up in my head. I hope to fix this in the future by establishing a writing process that perfectly fits my needs.

Overall, I do not feel that I am a bad writer and do not notice one specific area where I need the most improvement. The mistakes that I usually make on a paper are varied and small. A lot of them are small errors that went unnoticed. By improving my overall English skills, I think that I would become a better writer.

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For the Junior Year
For my junior year of college, I have a new set of goals that I wish to accomplish by the time that I begin my senior year at Monmouth College.

Goals:

•  To make no more than three MLA errors in all of my English papers
•  To periodically review historical and canonical literature studied in the survey classes so that all authors and writing are fresh in my mind and not forgotten
•  To Break away from my typical five paragraph essay format
•  To further my creative writing skills by committing to freestyle write at least once a week

In my sophomore education in progress report, I listed five goals that I wished to accomplish by the end of my sophomore year. Looking back at those goals, I find that! had familiarized myself with the proper MLA format. However, I did make a couple of format mistakes in essays and papers. These errors were pointed out to me and I learned from my mistakes. Also, I made it a point to keep my MLA handbook on my desk so that I could easily access it to took up a format question.

My second goal from my sophomore year pertained to grammar, structure, and punctuation. Looking at my graded papers in my portfolio, I found that I improved in all three areas.

My third goal from my sophomore year was to extend my knowledge of canonical and historical literature. I do not think that I achieved this goal. While a teacher would periodically bring up an author or piece of writing that was examined in a survey course, I often could not remember details or stylistic values from the writing.

My fourth goal was to hone my writing skills and my writing process. I feel that I greatly improved this area. After writing so many essays and papers during my sophomore year, I feel that I finally settled into a smooth writing process. Receiving good grades on my papers helped to raise my confidence in my writing process. Also, by establishing a foolproof writing process, I was able to not dread writing a paper. Knowing how to write a paper greatly diminished the fear and procrastination that I often felt when sitting down to write a paper.

My fifth goal was to familiarize myself with the different styles and techniques of writing available. I feel that advanced composition helped familiarize me with different ways of writing. Having to write in different manners helped me also.

Having reviewed my goals froth my sophomore year, I feel that the five goals listed above for my junior year are logical and achievable. Each goal is a challenge to me, yet they are not too challenging that I won’t be able to complete them.

Overall, I feel that I am progressing nicely as an English major. I am enjoying the classes and also enjoy the challenge of writing essays and papers on more intricate, challenging topics. I look forward to the year ahead and the progress that I will make. Hopefully, by the end of the school year, I will have reached my five goals from above.

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For the Senior Year:
Like any graduating senior, I am approaching [the end of my academic career] with some trepidation. However, taking a look back at my work in the Monmouth College English Department over my last four years as an undergraduate is an affirmation that I am ready to move past graduation from this institution to meet success in a new place. I came to Monmouth College with an interest in literature, and over the past four years as an English major, I have developed my talents in analyzing, discussing, and writing about literature. Additionally, I have broadened my skills by experimenting with new writing techniques and different areas of writing, both personal and professional.

Studying my body of work from the past four years reveals that I have become more willing to experiment with new formats in my analytical essays, therefore requiring that I develop more complex explication skills, along with the ability to weave my own ideas and assertions with support from the text. For instance, my semester of work in American Survey II is based largely on comparative model essays. My ability to make connections across two works of literature demonstrate rudimentary explication skills, using my own analysis and some textual support, though it seems that I hadn’t yet developed the confidence to really “dig” into one piece yet. However, the arguments in my work seem fairly tight, and the writing is smooth and organized.

My second year became a time to really sharpen my analytical skills in British Survey I and II, as well as 20 Century British Literature. Under the guidance of Dr. Hale and Dr. Willhardt, I was encouraged to explore more depth in the pieces of literature we studied. This also became a time when I rapidly increased my breadth of reading material. This year, my essay format shifted from basic compare/contrast pieces to more in-depth analytical essays of one work at a time. The work also displays a more fluid integration of textual support for thesis-focused arguments. This is evident in the example I have chosen to include in the portfolio from British Survey I. In my essay, Military Heroism and Obligations of Love in Othello, I begin to go beyond a basic reading of the plot and reach for deeper insights, such as character motivation and to bolster those assertions with support from the text. My second year is also when I began to gain some more experience with documenting sources and citing textual evidence in proper MLA format, thanks to Professor Hale. The marks on my essay on William Blake’s “Holy Thursday” are evidence enough that Hale is a stickler for proper format.

Proper citation became a skill was quite helpful as I completed Research Methods in conjunction with British Survey II during the spring semester of my sophomore year. Completing an essay on Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street,” I learned how to find suitable outside sources and evidence to support an argument, along with my own insights and support from the text. Throughout the process, I gained confidence in my own assertions and learned to back off the critics, using them only to reinforce my own case, not to make it for me. Also, my research paper was an important piece for me developmentally, because I learned how to connect a piece to other works of literature, as well as social and political events that influenced the work.

My junior year was by far the most difficult, but under pressure I created my best work and made more progress than in any other year. I am most proud of my work from this year because I believe it clearly demonstrates growth in all competencies. I sharpened my ability to analyze literature, broadened my exposure to various genres, and stretched my writing abilities. I was completely immersed in the study of English this year with American Survey I, American Fiction of the South, Shakespeare: Tragedies and Romances, and Advanced Composition. This intense course load forced me to hone my analytical skills and practice them on a daily basis, hut I believe a large part of my success during my third year stems from a willingness to explore the literature and my own writing abilities.

Rising to a challenge from Dr. Willhardt to explore new areas and techniques in writing, I succeeded in stretching my ability to write well, but differently than I ever had before. Willhardt made me get more personal in my writing, which proved to be a difficult task for me. During Advanced Composition, I had to become more involved with each piece that I wrote, becoming the storyteller and not the critic. This is evident in my piece on Pakistani women and my essay on my father, which is filed under creative work. In both pieces and in other work from that year, it is clear that I began to turn inward and really pay attention to the style of my pieces. Of course, the standard analytical and argumentative essays are there, hut the work I am most proud of this year are the pieces that feature my own storytelling, because the territory was so foreign to me and I took the leap anyway.

My experience with exploring my ability to tell stories proved to be beneficial this year in my course on Liberty with Professor Johnston for my Issues and Ideas requirement. Our final assignment was to interview a veteran of a U.S. war and to tell their story. My goal was to not only tell a veteran’s story that might shed light on a generation of veterans of the same war, but also to make the reader feel an intimate connection with my subject’s personal story and how his involvement in the service affected his life. Collecting information from three separate interviews with Dan Tansy, a Monmouth resident and a Vietnam veteran, I sorted through his statements to create a story that was coherent for readers, but also accurately depicted Dan’s feelings about his time of duty. I tried to tell Dan’s story by directly using his quotes as subheadings, giving the reader a chance to “hear” Dan, as well as make sense of complex life.

In addition to sharpening my ability to write an analytical piece, as well as broadening my skills to new areas of writing, I gained some professional experience during my undergraduate years as well. I found my internship experiences to be valuable because they taught me a bit about writing for a living. I learned the guidelines and style of journalism, how to cater to an audience, gained experience completing specific assignments under pressure and deadlines. For instance, my experience in Print Media Workshop with Tom Withenbury helped me understand more about journalism and deadlines through learning how to effectively write press releases. Also, my summer internship at OSF, Inc. in Peoria forced me to cater my writing to very specific audiences—OSF employees in their internal newsletter and employee events publicity, and potential OSF patients in the brochures I helped create.

Coming to Monmouth College in the fall of 2000, I had a passion for English studies that was strong, but up to that point had been undernourished. Pour years later, I am leaving with the satisfaction that I have grown in my abilities to appreciate literature through analysis, writing, and discussion, fueled by the same spark that I had when I came here.