My Experience Moving from Hearth & Story to English Comp I

by Matteo Sodano

For my second semester of seventh grade, I took English Comp I as a free class at my local community college. The reason I was able to take it was thanks to Ohio’s College Credit Plus program, which starts in seventh grade.

To prove that I was ready to take English Comp I, there was a challenge I had to overcome.  The college requires a WritePlacer test in which students have to write a 5-paragraph essay in one sitting using the prompt given. Before I took this test, I practiced writing whole essays with random prompts in a limited time frame. At the end of every practice essay I wrote, my mom helped me estimate what score I might get. Before I knew it, I was able to take the test. When I turned in the essay, which was scored right away by a computer, I found out that I passed. I was ecstatic because I was finally able to take college classes.

I am hard of hearing, and I had a difficult decision to make. If I took my class in person, there would be someone typing everything the professor says into an iPad, which would then transfer onto my tablet. However, I was worried that the captioner wouldn’t show up, or that my own caption software might malfunction. On the other hand, if I took the class online, then there wouldn’t be as much hassle. While I wouldn’t be able to socialize as much, I opted for taking English Comp I online.

Before the course started, I was worried that I would get low grades. I realized that if I focused more on writing something strong instead of getting high marks, my writing would be a lot better. To my surprise, I got an A on my first final draft.

Because of the jump rope competitions I had throughout the semester, which involved traveling a lot, I had to make sure to turn in my work on time. However, I was still able to finish all of my assignments before the deadlines. There were even points where I was a week ahead of the class.

Throughout the course, there were five essays I had to write. The first essay was a narrative, where I told the story of one of my competitions. My second essay was the evaluative essay. I wrote about deciding between majoring in Applied Nutrition and Health or Applied Business and Technology. Moving on, my third piece was the analytical essay, where I performed a rhetorical analysis of the news coverage about a scandal involving Gavin Newsom. My fourth writing project was the annotated bibliography. This fed into the final essay, the research paper. This was a 1000-word paper, and it had to include at least five sources cited in MLA format.

In my opinion, there are many types of students who would probably be successful in this class. Any student who has successfully finished Hearth & Story Level 7-8 would be qualified to take English Comp I. They would already know how to write a narrative essay, persuasive essay, and research paper with citations. However, to be successful in this course, a student will also need to work hard and turn in their work before the deadlines. Overall, I would recommend taking English Comp I after finishing Hearth & Story Level 7-8.