What do I want to learn from English 150?

I am a reader. I love to read. Writing, however, I am not such a fan of. When I read I get to learn about all of these cool ideas the author has. I feel like I am increasing my knowledge. Also, it is passive. With writing, though, I feel that, first of all, I have no good ideas to share; secondly, I am horrible at communicating any ideas I do have; and third, what I write usually isn’t worth the effort. I also am not good at expanding my thoughts enough to meet the required paper lengths. I am hoping that this class will teach me to write well. This should be an example to you of why I don’t like writing: I can’t even convey what it is I need to learn.

To start, I guess I would like to learn how to come up with ideas and formulate my own opinions about issues. I am a moderate. In everything. I have very few strong opinions, because I like to look at things from both ways. Either that or I frankly just don’t care. It is hard to write about something you don’t care about and even harder to take a side on an issue where you can see the good in both sides. So, in sum, I guess I would like to learn how to form opinions, even if just for the sake of writing, and be able to support them.

Next, I would like to learn how write a flowing paper. Mine tend to be very structured and choppy. I jump from idea to idea rather than continuing from one point to the next. I don’t know how well this can be taught, because it almost seems like it has more to do with a thinking process than just writing.

Also, I would like to learn how to stretch my papers without being redundant or just filling it with quotes. I need to know how to make a paper my own and use quotes to support rather than make my argument. I also want to know how to make a paper interesting without breaking the lines of formality.

Furthermore, I am not confident with education I got in High School. I am not sure I know how to structure papers right, what kind of words to use, how long sentences should be, and all of that technical stuff. Maybe if we could have a review? I am sure our Penguin Handbook talks all about that stuff, though.

In addition, I want to know what you expect out of the class. For good or bad, I write based on what I think the teacher is looking for. If that if bad, I guess I need to learn how to ignore what I think the teacher’s expectations are.

Overall, I think I’ve got the alphabet under control and how to write basic sentences down, but anything past that I think I could use some general help with. I don’t think I’m an awful writer, I just think I am unlearned in the subject, and I am hoping that this class can take away a little of that ignorance. College professors don’t take to well to the excuse “I didn’t know any better.” I hope this was a clear enough outline of what I would like to learn.