JRNL 306

My name is Michael Sanders. I was born in Dearborn, Michigan, around 7:30 pm on Thursday, September 14th, 1989. I have one brother who is four years older than me. My dad is an accountant, and my mom is a teacher.When I was nine years old we moved to Westland where we live today. On the same day we moved in, I broke my left arm while play wrestling on the lawn and had a cast on it for three weeks. I graduated in 2008 from Churchill High School in Livonia Michigan. I wanted to come to Eastern because I wanted to go somewhere where I could live on campus rather than just going back and forth from home to school everyday.
English is my strongest subject. I got an A in both my public speaking and English 121 class freshman year. Both class seemed stressful at times but I learned a lot from them. I especially thought my English 121 teacher was tough. He would always complain that students were making the same mistakes all the time, and that people were using slang or writing the way that they would talk. I sometimes thought he was a little over critical. I took a creative writing class at Schoolcraft in the spring to caught up on credits. We did a lot of peer editing and when I saw the poor quality in other students work, I realized why it is so essential to have good English skills.
I enjoy English because no matter what you major in, you will always need good writing skills. Even if somebody is very intelligent, if they can not communicate their thoughts and feelings well through both speaking and writing, they will never be very effective in their job. Someone who can communicate well with others both in writing and speaking will do have a better chance of succeeding no matter what career they go into.
I am taking this class because I think I would be most interested in instructional writing. I have had other students tell me that I am good at explaining things and I would like to be able to incorporate that into my writing. With the newspaper industry declining, I would prefer to learn about writing books rather than for a newspaper or magazine. I enjoy woodworking as a hobby and think I would someday like to write and publish a woodworking book. I hope that by taking this class, I will be able to eventually accomplish my goal.