Worshop is for learning

After today’s workshop I finally came to know that workshop is really for learning. Although it was about giving comments on others’ papers, I had learnt a lot from their papers. Discovering others’ experiences and relating all those experiences through our own judgment innovates our level of thinking, skills of writing. This experience was really new for me and greatly encouraging. While I was giving the comments on my classmates’ papers, I was not only providing feedbacks but also exploring many ideas that I will need to improve in my paper. At the beginning I felt a little bit nervous whether my comments would be effective for my partner or not. But gradually I found it interesting by giving comments and gaining knowledge from them.

Although it was not easy for me to give comments on others’ papers, I tried my best to give effective feedback that would help them. I found the most difficult experience was to explore the self analysis of my class mates’ papers. Oh, god. I forgot to analyze me and my food which is the most important element of the personal essay. I assumed. While commenting the papers I found it difficult to relate their experiences, their relationships between them and their foods, why they enjoy it, why they do not enjoy it like those stuffs made me tensed that do they really exist in their papers or not. As soon as I read and commented the papers, I discovered same problem in my paper. After the class discussion I got to know that how can I really deeply involve me into the food memory.

Reading others’ writing greatly helps to evaluate one’s own writing. By this workshop, we got the chance to read our classmates’ papers and it is rewarding to me that it truly affects our way of thinking, helps to trace out our own flaws by pointing out others’ flaws and enrich our ideas, experiences by knowing and encouraging their creative writing and experiences. Over all for being a good writer, this kind of workshop is very helpful.

Yes, joining in this workshop is a valuable experience for me as because it teaches me how to write a unique personal essay. Although, it is very hard to apply all those knowledge in the practical field, but at least we will try to do for the best. And this workshop is especially helpful for giving comments on our peers’ papers. To evaluate others’ papers one has to study more that he or she did in her paper.

I think the workshop was successful in a way. However, it could be improved by doing some practices before. For example, we can give comments on some famous writers’ personal essays. Moreover, I want to mention one thing that giving feedback personally is better than giving it in front of others because everybody’s writing quality is not equal. Somebody may feel embarrass when anyone castigate their papers, may lose their confidences. It will affect their writing and so it should be personal conversation. Overall, the workshop is successful for our prof. Evans’s great support to make us triumphant writer.

 

What is writing workshop? by sohana urmi

Due to illness, I was unable to attend last Thursday’s class. Therefore, when I heard that we had to write personal essay and those would be work shopped from my friends, it rarely made any sense to me. “What is writing workshop? I went to writing center for editing my writing piece, but what are we going to do?” However, next class, I asked professor whether we need to sign u for the workshop, she said she had already put my name in the list. I was more co fused to hear that. In the next class we were given more details about work shop and I got to know that all my class mate would read my essay as I was in the first list of work shop and they would give me feedback. I was in a great tension, “Oh god! Why I am in the first group? Why they are going to read my essay, what they will say after reading my silly writing?” these thought hold be back from writing down whatever came to me. I thought to make my introduction interesting and the stories attention grabbing. However, I finished writing and sending to all my classmates and professor. Then, the desirable day came and we were asked who wanted to be the first and brave one to be work shopped. I raised my hand and professor was happy. Next, all my friend s started to give me comments and suggestion about my essay. I found that each and every word of them was inspiring and encouraging. They congratulated me as well as showed me the weaknesses of my essay where I can improve. As professor said that as the essay is about our own story, it is clear an understandable to me, but some of my friends struggled to understand what I want to say. Over all, my friends comments were, “I love your introduction, your paper is really interesting, but you can include more dialogue, as it is food related essay, so be explicit about your food details and there are some mechanism, please be conscious about that.” I tried to tell them that I wanted to mean this and that, and realized that why I was telling them. I have to write and from my writing every single thing will be clear to them. So I took notes from their comment and finally I paid attention to the professor’s comment. She gave some important guideline to reconstruct the essay. When it was finished, I realized that this is the amusing thing called writing workshop. It was really helpful. My friends and professor gave impressive comment and guidelines. I am not afraid to work shop my writing, because when a group of people giving suggestion or feedback, it is obvious that the paper will be more constructive, expressive and interesting. I felt like that I have built a brick house and my friends and professor helped me to decorate its entire and outer part such as painting, furnishing and so on. I loved the workshop more when I got chance to give my suggestion to my other three friends. There was a competition that who can give more constructive guideline before others. It was fun and effective too. Therefore, now, I have a clear idea what is writing workshop.

Writing Experiences from the Workshop

Personal essay paper! For food and culture course, I have no idea how to start writing for this. Actually, I know I do not have self-confidence to write anything because I know that I always make some grammatical errors and that I jump from one idea to another while I am writing. Really, I want to write an equivocal paper for all of my readers. Therefore, I feel so nervous and irascible to write about it. I am so worried about making the same mistakes again and again in my writing. I try castigating to improve my writing skills ever since I’ve been studying in the Access Academy program that is an English language training program for University students.

Though I am not so great at writing, I would still like to write my personal essay of how I relate to food and what my experiences about food are from my memories. Because my professor has also created a helpful workshop for us, it encourages me not to worry if I am to find too many mistakes in my writing. I know that it helps me to improve my writing skills by getting feedback from my friends and I also learned how other students organize and structure their writing and how to use incorporate some new vocabularies into my writing from reading my friends’ papers. It is also one method in helping to improve my writing from this workshop. Consequently, I already have been chosen to participate in the first group of the workshop this upcoming Tuesday.

“Next Tuesday, our workshop will start!” and “This week, Zune, Sohana, Rasani, and Priyanka!” my professor told us. And then, she continued, “You have to submit your paper on Sunday midnight by email.”

Even so, I can be a sagacious writer, I start writing about my memories related to food, that are important in my life, after that, I wrote two stories, one of my 10th Birthday party and our celebration party for finishing the Access Academy Program with my teacher and friends.

From my workshop experiences, all of my friends gave feedback about my paper; what I need to add are some points such as describing details especially about foods in my paper, and where necessary to change some of my concepts, so as not to jump one from one idea to another, and there were also some additional other comments to improve my writing skills for the final paper. Getting feedback from my professor and friends also taught me how to edit other students’ paper and allowed me to have more confidence while writing my own paper. Also, I was able to understand what were my weaknesses and strong points in my writing.

The last part was getting knowledge on how to write a personal essay; important skills such as using structure, tone, and using dialogue especially for the personal essay, and the main purpose, particularly using your five senses to relate to food such as smell, taste, feel, see, and hear to describe about it. The main difficult part is how I can connect one paragraph to another because it helps my readers to understand what I am talking about in my writing. All of these experiences combined starting from finding mistakes to providing feedback to my friends’ ideas, I believe will help my final paper become a much stronger and effective paper.

Wanna be a Good Writer? Come to Workshop

“Now you will give comment, take your position but oh no…She said it already”

“You donkey, don’t you? This time you have failed also”

No no, don’t think anyone scolding me. It was my fight with myself for presenting my comment to my peers in writing workshop. I guess every classmate of mine has got this feeling as I did since it was like “I want to tell first” competition type because professor strongly recommended about everyone’s participation. So, everyone tried their highest to give as much comment as they can to get good participation mark.

I know now I am a bad guy. You will say “this girl is so mean, she is just thinking about grade”.

But I am not saying that the comments that we presented to our classmates for their paper was for grade only, yeah I haven’t said that. Because how can I deny that after this workshop I again looked at my paper, check that how to relate the memories or the events by one theme and rethink the significance of describing those events that I have described in my essay although I was not from those students who were getting comments. I cannot reject one of my acquaintance’s critiques to another student about every paragraph, how to build communication with the sentences, structure and how to explain clearly what we want to express actually, how is it important to use appropriate words and to make sense of the things. From this workshop I came to know also about using provocative dialogues and specific description of food which will make our paper attractive and enjoyable. How can I refuse the useful comments of improving introduction and conclusions in which I am weak and feel difficulties most of the times when I start to write something?

I am a shy person and I always fear about critiquing someone but I don’t leave any chance to praise or giving compliment to others. I believe myself that as I am not a perfect writer and good student how can I critique someone else’s paper because if I would give feedback that time I could improve my writing but I can’t. I know you are again thinking that how dumped and unconfident this girl is but I rarely do care because I am telling truth. In workshop also I battled with my own thought of “what she will think, what if she laugh at me or ignore me or what if she gives me a neglected look”. I was also feeling uncomfortable thinking that what if my comment makes her sad or disappointing because I don’t want to hurt anyone. However, while I gave writing comments in my peers’ paper I felt I am a teacher and cutting my students’ exam paper which was fun. Also, after giving each comment my confidence level was increasing. Although I don’t know that my comments was helpful or not for my peers I enjoyed giving them the comments because I felt I became matured. Also our professor’s encouraging words “you guys are doing great” has increased my confidence level.

Human beings are curious in nature especially about others life and in writing workshop we got this valuable opportunity to learn about some chapters of our peers’ lives. While reading I became nostalgic, even some of the events were so similar with my life events that I felt I am reading my own story. That’s why when Priyanka said that her mom used to ask every day to her that what she should cook, I heard my mom’s worrying voice saying same question to me every day. June’s birthday party take me to my own birthday party where my family members participate to celebrate and my grandma, aunt used to help my mom in cooking. Urmi’s suffering of obesity recall the comments of people that they give for my fat body.

It was really thoughtful workshop having lots of discussion and come up with some ideas about how to improve writing. It was helpful for my own essay as I realized some of mistakes also. However, if the workshop would be less competitive and the environment would be easier than we will be able to give our comments freely.

 

Workshop Experience

I was confused. Will my comment be helpful for them or they will become upset? I asked myself this question while thinking about my friends writing for their workshop.

While reading some personal essays of my friends I totally absorbed myself in those memories as if it was me. In contrast, I couldn’t reflect myself more in some others essays. It was really not that much essay to make strong comment after reading once. When I read for the first time only good things were visible to me and one thing I could understand whether it was interesting or not.

When any essay captures my attention after reading the first paragraph then the whole essay seems nice to me and when it is not that much interesting then the whole essay loses its life to me. By this I just understood how important it is to make the introduction interesting so that the reader finds an attraction to read the whole essay.

It was very challenging to me to give them feedback. For giving them feedback, first I went through the whole essay and marked all interesting parts. When it was time to suggest them or criticize them I had to ask myself for twice, trice or more, which suggestion should I give and which will be more helpful to them. I was really confused when I got several answers from me for one question.

Reading others paper is really supportive for me. When I read one’s paper only then I can learn about my own writing. I write whatever seems best for me but after reading other’s paper I can know about the lacking in my own paper and also I can suggest them if they can make it more interesting.

When I write and read only my paper then I become very biased about that, it’s okay whatever I have written. However, reading others paper helps me to know my standard of writing. When I read any motivating essay which fascinates me then I thought what she has used to make it a powerful writing, then I take lesson from it. Therefore, I can say undoubtedly that reading other’s essay was very rewarding for me.

Reading others paper helped me to understand my own writing very well. When I found anything interesting then I thought about my own essay. Did I write this way? Sometimes the answer was yes sometimes no. Besides, when I found anything less interesting, unnecessary dialogues that spoils the significance of the essay then I became scared about my essay  that may be I have also used something like that but I didn’t understand while writing.

It was a brilliant way to understand about my own article, my own mistakes and whether it can satisfy reader or not. If I think critically while writing my own essay then I think I can improve my writing status to make it powerful.

The workshop was really fantastic to help the student by giving precious feedback. I would like to say that, everybody should appreciate one’s writing so that nobody becomes upset about their writing. While criticizing everybody should change their tone so that it seems friendly to them who have workshop. Overall, the first workshop of this class was incredible to me.

 

 

Commenting and Being Commented on

     “I forgot to sign up in the sheet for the workshop,” I said to myself running towards the office of Professor Dayna Evans. “How can I forget signing it? I had to sign in for the third paper not for the second paper, personal essay. I feel awkward sharing my inner feelings with everyone,” I talked to myself until I reached the office. My fear of not getting a slot for the third paper came true as in the signup sheet all the slots for the third paper were already reserved by my classmates. All that was left was the slots for a personal essay on the first day of the workshop. With disappointment I signed in the sheet. I returned from the office with ideas lingering in my mind, “How is my paper going to be? How is the workshop going to be? Will my friends criticize me severely? I would probably be acting stupid in front of them when I hear my writing being criticized. I might have negative feelings about them,” and so on. I had good thought about the workshop as well, but each time it was dominated by devil’s advocate of my mind.

     From the morning my heart was beating faster. I did not know the reason behind it. “Today I have a workshop,” I reminded myself while trying to figure out why my heart was so unsteady. The day passed quickly and it was the time for the workshop. I sat in the chair hearing Thump! Thump! Thump! This sound was making me more nervous in the class; however, I managed to smile time and again. The workshop started by commenting on one of my friends’ paper. Almost all the classmates commented on her paper and it wasn’t horrible at all as I have initially thought. However, being in a position where you have to comment on others paper and you, too, will be commented after sometime is a little tough situation. I was having a qualm when I was commenting on my friend’s paper because when I was editing their papers, I realized many flaws in my paper also. As I was commenting, my heart was saying “You made the same mistake and now you are giving suggestions. That’s funny. I don’t think you really have the authority to comment those ideas which you yourself have missed.” Though the devil’s advocate of my mind was active, I consoled myself saying, “I have learned my mistakes and want to share my ideas with them. This can help them improve their paper where they have depicted their feelings.” Sharing one’s ideas in the paper went really interesting.

     Finally it was my turn. I was crossing my fingers praying that my professor as well as my classmates would not say anything that would hurt my feelings and even small sharp word could demoralize me. The workshop got victory against the thoughts implanted by the devil’s advocate of my mind as I really enjoyed getting comments and compliments about the paper and felt glad that some of my writings could impress the class. My experience of the first workshop was soft with advice of my friends like a butter being spread in a loaf of bread. This softness is really satisfying because my devil’s advocate of the mind focused that the experience would be disappointing and it would harden my heart like the toast and the softness of butter spread over the surface will not soften the bread anymore.

     As there is always a way to make things better, there, too, are ways to come up with ideas to increase the effectiveness of the workshop. One step which I think can increase the effectiveness of the workshop is that those friends whose paper would be commented can also share their ideas or problems. The problems can be solved by discussing in a group. This way the class can get closer to meeting the aim of being a good and confident writer.

Workshop: The Helpful Hand for Writing

“So today we are going to start our workshop. Are you all excited?” Miss Dayna started the Tuesday class reminding us about our workshop for our personal essays. I was little bit nervous when we all seated on a circle, and formally Miss Dayna handed over the discussion about our peer’s paper. I was tensed whether I could evaluate my peer’s paper effectively, or I could not. In the same time, I was thinking if they would feel bad when I would share her faults in front of the whole class.

However, likewise the other new things workshop seemed difficult to me, I could overcome it after few minutes. Since Miss Dayna teaching us so many new things, and they seemed difficult at first glance, but her efficient teaching style and helpful mind always help me to cope up the difficulties and find interest on those unknown topics which at last make me friendly with those new lessons or styles. Similarly, Miss Dayna’s supportive voice praised after the first peer review, “You guys are really doing a wonderful job. I am really proud of you.” The appreciation from Miss Dayna’s smiley face logged out the nervousness and tension from my mind to participate in the workshop more actively.

The workshop was not only about to help our peers and improve our writings. It also teaches us how to critic other people for their betterment. At first we have to mention the positive aspects of the paper then politely we can give suggestions for our peers which give us the sense how to act with people when we will bring out their mistakes. Besides, the workshop also shows that if we do not be critic this won’t be helpful for our peers at al. Therefore, we need to be specific to give valuable feedbacks for my peers’ paper so that my comment can help her to find her faults and improve her writing. Through this workshop we learn how to be specific and careful for our observation to find out to improve any situation.

I found that workshop is really a helpful guideline to improve our writing. While we were discussing about the papers, I found many different ideas about the improvement of the paper. In some cases I found that when one was giving one suggestion, then another idea was knocking in my mind to make the paper more effective. We discussed about tone, reflection, dialogues, explicit details, voice structure, and connection between stories, and different style. Through workshop I had a better sense about different writing style. Moreover, the discussion helped not only to give feedback for my peers’ paper but it also made me conscious about my own paper. The discussion about the papers will help me to find out the mistakes from my paper. Since different people’s idea made more clear idea about the required materials of a personal essay, I can improve my paper with a clear sense to my paper more strong with dialogues, structure, tones, reflection, and connection the theme in my essay.

Indeed, the workshop was helpful for all the students to get a clear idea about what to do in papers and also some idea of being a good critique. Still participating all students and without repeating the same ideas we may create a more interesting and successful workshop.

A Way to Improve Our Writing Skills

Learning about others life experiences and connecting it to our own experiences is really fascinating. This is what we did in our last class through class workshop. We read four of our friend’s personal essays thoroughly and provided some feedbacks. To be honest, I was feeling nervous in the beginning. I thought whether my friends would like my comments or not, and if what I say, would be appropriate or not. However, when I read all of their papers, I felt encouraged and happy. The essays were great. There were many beautiful points in the essays that touched my heart. In some cases I was able to picture the scene as well.

            When it came to providing feedbacks, it was not that difficult as I had thought. When I had first thought of criticizing other’s work, I was not certain what I would say. As I went through the papers, the points where my friends could improve became somehow clear to me. To some extent, their mistakes were similar to mine. While I was reading and providing feedbacks on their papers, my mistakes were being apparent as well. On the way of finding their mistakes and the places where they could improve, I found the places where I could improve, too.

Besides reading and providing feedbacks on my peer’s essay, I too found the task significant to me. Sometimes even if our teachers point out our mistakes, we could not remember it all the time. I have found myself repeating the same mistakes over and over many times. However, when I read other’s essays and found that they did the same what I always do in my paper, it stroked my mind. Now, hopefully I will be able to remember not to repeat the same mistakes. At the same time, the places where they have beautifully described the scenes, I got some more hints of making my own paper more attractive and interesting. One lesson I got is that what I was searching for in their essay, I should imply that in my essay too. Similarly, my mistakes and the places where I could improve more became noticeable to me when going through other’s essay. Moreover, my other friends’ comments too helped me to notice the places where I can improve in my writing.

Overall, it was a real fun and exciting experience. We could provide feedbacks to our friends and at the same time learn to apply it in our own writing. These kinds of workshops definitely help us to develop our writings, as we learn what we need to improve and what others want to see in our essays. We can also imply what we have learnt and what we found significant in our friend’s papers in our own writings as well. It is an excellent way to improve our writing.

Thank you, Miss Dayna.

Digya… 🙂

Workshop: Stepping Towards Being a Good Writer

“Wow! I never knew I m this good at peer editing” I said to myself, after I completed editing twenty three pages written by my four friends. All their personal essays were great and I loved reading their papers. The experience was amazing. I was so nervous due to the fear of not being able to correctly accomplish the task given to me. At last I put my best effort into it and completed it.
This course “Food Matters” has strengthened my love for books and papers even more. I just love food and writing and reading about food is a real fun. I was my first time ever attending a workshop. I never knew what benefits would it have and how to participate in workshop. I can’t stay without thanking Ms. Dayna for the things I have learned through this workshop. Before doing the editing I was thinking how lucky those friends were whose papers were to be edited by fifteen other friends.

“They would get much more suggestions and we won’t. So unfair!” I told one of my friends after coming out of the class. Now I think I was totally wrong! How stupid I was not realizing the benefits I could get from peer editing. As I started editing my friends’ paper, I came to realize that there were so many things that I could learn out of it. Firstly, I compared their style of writing with mine. Somehow some of them were similar, but I figured out many differences and I could tell why they were better than mine.
In addition to that, I learned how to write explicitly. Seeing how my friends have used their ideas so vividly that I can actually get into the character of their story, I felt, I too can do this way. I often struggle with my papers in regard with being explicit and communicating my ideas clearly to the readers. Now that I saw how to play with words to picture my ideas, I think I can improve on my second paper.

Moreover, by considering what common mistakes did my friends make, I can apply that knowledge while writing my paper in order not to repeat the same. Finding out the strong points that I liked was much easy, but finding out the weak points was a bit challenging to me. The best part of the workshop for me was giving verbal comments in front of all the class. I particularly loved that because everyone could hear each other’s comments and can use that suggestion in their own paper as well.

Lastly, being respectful towards each other was the part I really appreciate. When my close friends ask me to check their paragraphs, I usually speak to them roughly and jokingly and sometimes even direct sentences such as “I don’t like this one. It’s confusing.” They also do the same with me. I, through this workshop, realized that we can give others feedback and suggestion without castigating them and being respectful to them. Over all, this workshop turned out to be very valuable and worth being a part of it. I look forward to many more workshops like this in future too!

First Experience of Writing Workshop

Last semester when I first knew about writing workshop, I was eager to participate in one; since I felt that it is the best possible to improve one’s writing. However, as I did not get much chance in last semester, when I first heard that I will get the chance in this semester, I was very excited about it. After finishing the first workshop I can infer without any hesitation the whole process of the workshop can assure writers a better draft of their writing.

At the beginning while I had to go through my classmates’ drafts, I felt it might be challenging for me to criticize their paper, as I am no better writer then them. By the time I started, it seemed easier than I thought. While checking their paper I paid attention to those points where my teachers’ have often tell me I am good at. To check in this gave me the hope to give them I better feedback. However, in many cases I was unsure about my comments whether it was right or wrong. In some cases I was also confused whether my friends will find it helpful or not. Still it was interesting to know about other peoples’ writing style.

From my point of view, to congratulate someone for their good writing is very influential for further better writing. Therefore, it was very pleasant part where I got the chance to encourage my writer friends. On the other hand, to criticize the weak parts of their writing was quite embarrassing for me. To discuss it in front of everyone was more awkward than commenting on their paper about the weak parts. I felt that it may dishearten them; they may become hopeless that they are not good writers, they may feel uncomfortable in front of everyone to discuss the weak parts. But thinking deeply about the fact, I came to conclude that though they might feel discomfited, it is for their betterment and in future it will help them from such kind of awkwardness.

In addition to the benefit of the writer it is very helpful for the editor. While reading their paper I had the chance to learn the good writing style of the writer. In many cases comparing their good writing skills with mine I got the chance to improve my own writing, I could identify my faults. For me to discuss all the writers bad and good skills was very helpful for improving my speaking skill in front of other people. Though I had the feeling that it may hurt the writer in some extend, still I had the inspiration to that for her betterment.

As I have the chance to say something about how can we develop the workshop, I will definitely remember the statement that “the writer cannot talk about her writing while others are criticizing her paper”. It may seem hard for the writer to say quiet, while others are misunderstanding her ideas. However, as we discussed in the class that your writing can easily make sense to you, but when someone is misunderstanding it then you have to understand that what you wanted to mean was not expressed clearly. Remember that you have to think about the reader whether it makes sense to them or not, your main attraction is to share our ideas to your readers; and when your readers are not getting the meaning then it shows that you are not successful. Therefore, it will be better if the writer keeps quiet, and try to fix the problems listening to others’ comments instead of clarifying by saying. If it is possible to maintain this strategy then I think it will be more beneficial for the writers.