English Class Reflection

English 10 has been one bizarre adventure from formal writing, to poetry, and then to creative writing. In this course, I have learned that there’s always room for improvement in everything I do. As a child, I struggled with writing, as English is my second language. This course has helped me grow in my writing skills, making it an enjoyable experience. Some of the strengths I have discovered in my writing is planning and editing. I tend to plan ahead of time before I write, so I have a clear understanding of what I am going to write. My editing skills are also extremely strong because I often edit to a greater extent than needed. I have come to improve the vocabulary in my essays because as I edit, I replace the weak words in my writing.

I have really enjoyed being in this English class. Just like the warning we got in the very beginning, there has been a lot of writing. It was good for me though. I took English 101 over the summer, but found I had quite a bit of writer’s block. It was hard for me to get any kind of energy to write. I found that interesting because I feel like I like writing is something that is enjoyable to me. With this class, the activities put forth, meant to help us get the writing gears moving, really worked for me.

First off, I want to thank you for making this year and my first honors English experience fun for me! Though this year was challenging for me, it has also been extremely knowledgeable. From my freshman year to sophomore year, I can definitely notice the difference in my writing and reading. I can definitely see how much I have grown, and I am sure you could see these improvements too. Last year, I was in regular English and jumping from regular to honors was a huge step for me, which at first, I was not fully comfortable with. But as I got to know this year’s class and of course you, Mrs. Walker, I felt like I belonged here, in an honors English class. Throughout this year, I have learnt and improved at my skills of properly annotating texts, writing a proper claim, analyzing author’s style, and also analyzing rhetorical situations.

As the semester was coming to a beginning I honestly thought I was ready for this course. I say this because senior year high school I took an advanced placement English class. I also, say I was ready to start this course because I have had practice with English and writing essays during my summer before beginning Fall year. I would get good grades on my essays both my AP English class and my Summer English class. So with that being said I thought I was going to do good in this course. As I began this course and saw that we were only going to be doing three essays and a portfolio for the whole year, I thought I was so ready for the semester. I thought this class was going to be one of my easiest class. As assignments were coming up I thought

When I began working in this class I was fearful that it would be a waste of my time. In high school, I took two AP English classes: administration at my school cancelled the first one in the middle of the year and I did not excell in the second. However, because of my educational background I am used to being challeneged and I did not see this course doing that for me. I never characterized myself as a great writer but I was already very familiar with the skills being reviewed so I did not believe that this course would add much value to my writing skills.

Throughout the English 111 class, my writing ability has grown to meet all of the course outcomes. In this class I was required to analyze fictional texts and make complex claims that matter in an academic contexts and revise them in order to make grammatical sense. For the 1.0 sequence I focused on Night, by Elie Wiesel and Sarah’s Key, written by Tatiana de Rosnay. Short papers 1.1 and 1.2, focused on each book respectively while major paper 1.3 allowed me to back my claim with both of the texts allowing for a larger exchange of ideas. Within the 2.0 sequence I focused mainly on the Poisonwood Bible, penned by Barbra Kingsolver. The short paper I have chosen to focus on for this sequence was 2.2; in which I had to write a letter to a character

In this assignment I address the pivotal moment in my development as a writer and how this event is changing me. I reflected on college English class at Azusa Pacific University that I am currently taking. Initially In this essay I will be discussing my driver for this class and explore how English course is a fundamental skill in my nursing career.

Before I enrolled in English 101 my ability to write specific types of papers (argumentative, rhetoric, narrative, etc) were mediocre at best. However, from reading The Norton Field Guide to Writing and They Say, I Say I gained a deeper understanding on how to better argue a point or write a narrative with a clear theme. Moreover, from my time of being in English 101 I have improved tremendously in the given areas: Rhetoric, Technology, Research, and Collaboration.

Since the beginning of this semester, English 101 has helped me realize both my strengths and weaknesses as a writer. One weakness that I have realized about myself is my tendency to not fully plan out my essays before I start writing the rough drafts. This is one thing that English 101 has helped me to improve, by creating well-planned out outlines before starting to write. A strength that I have is writing strong commentary that supports the provided quote and shows why the quote is relevant to the essay’s overall thesis.

As a writer, I am quite sure of myself. I feel that English 101 was a large step in improving and building my skills. Writing is a particular strength of mine, although I struggle when it comes to open-ended prompts. While I can effectively construct an argument, I would consider myself still inexperienced with the writing process. Throughout high school, there were few writing assignments and what I did write was formulaic and lacking substance; giving original ideas or organizing beyond the five paragraph essay is still fresh to me. My teachers would tell us students what to write during a “class discussion” of the literature and afterwards send us to work. Writing outside the basic five-paragraph essay was taboo; each attempt had been met

After reading through the class syllabus a few times, I get the impression that AP English will be a significant departure from my previous english classes, especially in workload and our power to determine our essay and discussion. Prior to this class, I have taken honors English 9, 10, and 11, with Derry, Armstrong, and Brewer, respectively. Though the specific focus of each class varied, all three, English 9 and 10 particularly, followed a similar pattern of reading, guided analysis and discussion, essay writing, and assessment. Almost all of this was very structured, such that I felt that our essays were pretty formulaic. Additionally, much of the class discussion seemed superficial in places, often discussion time was cut very short,

Before taking this class I never liked my English classes more specifically writing essays for them. I didn’t understand much of how to use strategies while writing essays and focuses little on learning it. By taking this class and using the strategies that I was provided with it made taking this class easy and enjoyable while writing analytical essays. I was willing to put in the effort and do my part in order to get a good grade in this English class and it worked. I feel that my performance in an English class has improved significantly.

In English 101, I mastered getting to the point of getting to my essays with less disappointment with force; I learned the significant use of scratch paper. For example, I wasn’t always use to writing my essays on scratch paper; however, keeping in mind that the scratch paper was a nondurable tool as I finished my paper, because I knew they would be thrown away. Also, the professor required us to submit our scratch paper along with our essays. With this procedure, I was forced to rewrite my essays. He felt that the scratch paper would be a help to us as we continually to learn how to effectively write our essays.

What I learned from this semester in English 101-102 class was to have an open mind and be creative. My papers had to have mean something to me and had to move like the rivers of Babylon. My papers had to keep the reader entertain and have resources that backed up my information. We had to use instruction that made our papers easier to understand. English 101-102 help me become a better academic writer because I learn how to make inquiries, seeking and valuing complexity, seeing writing as a conversation, and understanding writing as a process.

The information covered this week was interesting and useful for me as an educator. The understanding of language development is highly critical for developing English among learners without any doubt. As an educator it is extremely important to be informed and familiar with the extensive process of learning proficient English for non-native students. The points that will be discussed in this synthesis are: Language Development, Biological development, technology in the classroom, and assessing student’s learning. Moreover, all of these practical strategies were shown on the two videos selected for this week. Both teachers from the videos intentionally or unintentionally implemented these practices through the execution of the lesson.