The Difference of High School and College Writing

The Difference of High School and College Writing
These two complete weeks that I’ve been in college, I learned that I didn’t get well prepared for college writing and reading. Having to transition from high school writing and reading to college writing and reading can seem very over whelming. It’s like starting out fresh. Learning reading and writing may seem like basic skills but the more you do it the more you learn the basic fundamentals and tools. The differences of high school and college writing and reading are very noticeable and can seem very basic and simple but there are some techniques that I would have never thought of learning about.
The First couple of weeks in College, I was told that we do not use the five paragraph structure. I have always used the five paragraph structure. I know for a fact that I will struggle trying to transition myself from high school writing to college writing. During my four years in high school, I was always told that the five paragraph format was always going to be used in college, which is why we always did our essays in five paragraphs. In high school, I was taught to include a thesis statement in my papers; usually my thesis statement would be near the end of my first paragraph. The transition from high school to college reading and writing shows an enormous expansion in many basic skills, tools and techniques, making us students to better understand a more advance standard. In my point of view, college does not require any type of format or structure to write an essay. I have already learned, in these two past weeks, I should get into the habit to always having to re-read and question when reading sentence by sentence in each paragraph in the book. In high school, I would always just skim threw the article and write what I thought it was about, but now if I just skim threw it then I’ll be lost and will not understand the article.
I honestly don’t think high school has not prepared me quite enough for college, in both my reading and writing. Being able to base my writing through templates, having to read carefully between the lines of each paragraph, learning how to start an argument/conversation with others to get a second opinion, but most of all making my writing flow and making sense in my paper are some of the concepts that college expect from me. Coming into class the first couple of weeks in college and learning that the five paragraph structure that I have used my whole high school years was just a waste of time. College writing format is mainly based on your own opinions. College does not really require any kind of specific of format or specific structure. In College reading goes more than what the actual meaning is. So far the vocabulary isn’t that much of a difference than high school. In high school we never really had any type of conversations or exchanging thoughts of what the article was about. During my four years in high school I never thought I would have to speak up and exchange my opinions with other people in class, so I would be able to have a better understanding of the reading and also as I write a paper.
In high school, no matter what, we would always use the same method on writing an essay. Our teachers would give us exact instructions on what they wanted. Most of my high school English teachers would give us a structure format of what they wanted us to use. This structure had to have an introduction, thesis, three body paragraphs and a conclusion summarizing the whole essay. In high school, all we had to do is a five paragraph essay. Now in college we have to write a certain amount of pages, or a certain amount of words in a page. this is probably going to be one of the hardest concepts for me because it is very difficult for me to write about the same topic, especially if it has to be a three to five pages. The two books we have read in class “They Say/ I Say” and “Inquiry To Academic Writing” I have learned and got so much from both books. I really like using the templates in the book “They Say/I Say”, it gives me several options on how to start on my writing. A lot of the time that’s the hardest part for me, I don’t know how to start my essays so these templates are very useful. Templates give us a several ways to start writing and to give our opinions. The other book that was very informative was “From Inquiry to Academic Writing” these also help me developed more my reading skills and writing skills. It helped me better understand that my writing needs to have a good argument and give different sides of opinions to make up a good argument paper. Having both of these books have really helped me build up and improved on how I structure and write my papers. Even though now that I’m in college and realized that high school didn’t really prepared me for college, high school did show me the basic concepts. For example, writing a proper essay and how to organize my thoughts. Transitioning to college writing and reading may be difficult at first because of all the different techniques, for example longer writing and more advanced reading. High school and college have variety differences in how its structures, and the education level. Obviously in college we are more independent of our work, our instructor are not going to be always telling us what is due or what we have to do. Writing is something I cannot learn and improve in one day, but over time the more I practice the better I will become at writing great paper.