I had previously taken a college English class in high school but this was the first one I took at Longwood. I was nervous for this class because I have never been good at writing, grammar is not my strong suit. We were required to read an essay for every class and we would have a quiz on them during class. The first reading I thought was pretty easy to follow, it was about nature and the authors point of view on her day at the beach. I thought I would use my studying strategy I used for history and would take notes on the essay while I read it. I went to class and we were given the quiz which was all short answer and I freaked out. The quiz asked about very specific details of the essay that I was not prepared to answer. This was my first quiz ever in my college career and I was sure I failed it. I left class feeling defeated and called my mom crying because I was so upset with myself. To my surprise, she was not mad at me, she told me it was the first quiz and it was the beginning of the semester so there was time to bring it up but to stay focused and not let this one quiz determine how I do for the rest of the semester. I took her advice and instead of reading the essay once before class, I would read the essays about four times to ensure I knew all the details.

Towards the end of the semester we received our final project which was to write and essay on any personal experience. I chose to write about my step father and how he changed my life for the better. This was really an emotional essay for me to write and part of the assignment was that we had to hand out copies to every student in the class so they could critique our writing. I was terrified. I thought people would trash my essay and I would have to start from scratch; however, I was presently surprised when the comments were very constructive and no one was mean about it. These critiques really helped me improve my essay and made me a better writer and I am so glad I was able to have that experience.