Walking into the first day of class, I had no idea what to expect. With new surroundings, unfamiliar faces, and a new teacher, I sat patiently in my chair until class began. I also was not aware of what expository writing was except for what I had concurred from the given words “expository writing”. Feeling curious and unprepared, Mr. Kopp walked through the door. He was tall, intelligent looking, and seemed very focused. Once he spoke, I knew immediately that the class was going to be interesting and exciting.
After he had explained to his students what the structure of his expository writing class was going to be, I became even more interested; our class assignments were to be posted to a blog.
Through out high school I have always heard about blogging but never had I created a blog myself or even seen one for that matter. Because of this, I became even more fascinated with the class since something new and different was at hand. Creating a blog was something that I had always wanted to do, but never had a good reason to do so.
Our first assignment was to write about something in a basic expository format. The way that Mr. Kopp described the assignment was very broad and open-minded causing hesitation to fill the room. Knowing that I wasn’t the only one feeling unsure about the first assignment, I then realized that Mr. Kopp wanted us to feel that way. He gave us such a broad format because he knew we would figure it out on our own (clever Mr. Kopp).
After finishing post number one, I was feeling confident with what I had written. But when I brought my piece to class for our first peer edit, I was listening to others read their writing pieces aloud and realized that more than half the class didn’t use first person; which I had. This was when I realized that expository writing typically does not use first person because it is an unbiased explanation of a certain topic.
Our second assignment was to “Rewrite the News” by taking an article and rewriting it to make it our own. I definitely had difficulty writing this assignment because of the use of bias. The article I used was extremely biased towards the topic, anabolic steroids, making it hard to create my own article with out the use of bias. But with the help my peer edit group, I was able to create two sides of opinion on anabolic steroids, for or against, but still making it clear to the audience that I was against the topic.
Another learning outcome that I was able to pull from my expository writing class was how to stay consistent through out my pieces of writing. For example, our last assignment was a Classification Essay. Out of the three common topics I chose, two of them had recipes for the type of diet, but the third did not. To make a writing piece more effective, I learned that by having consistency through out your piece of writing makes it easier for the audience to read and understand.
Overall, I learned many things during this class. First, I learned that consistency in writing makes a writing presentation flow well as well as contributing to the effectiveness of the writing. Second, I became aware of when to use bias depending on the type of writing being presented. And also, I learned how to present my pieces of writing in the most effective way possible because of peer edit groups. Peer edit groups were one of my favorite things to do in class because I was able to have multiple different opinions from others about my writing with out feeling insecure or unintelligent. Other things that I learned during this class were how to identify my audience, deliver a clear message, and write without using first person.
English 271 will always be remembered by me because of the people, discussions, and the strong and intelligent Mr. Kopp. Mr. Kopp truly made this class interesting and exciting every day because of his enthusiasm, passion and devotion to writing and his students.
