English Reflection

Throughout the course of English composition 101 I had participated and worked on many different assignments that lead to better understanding and enhance of skills I had already learned in while in high school as well as the learning of new techniques and process in which to imbedded into my writing to make it better. Some of the assignments and in-class activities that lead to this included the several essays I wrote, presentations, actively-reading assignments, and in-class lectures. These assignments and in-class activities led me to better understand how to compare essays, use and develop a writing process that work efficiently for myself, better organize essays, learning to use grammar and punctuation better, identify creatable sources to use in papers, to read critically through another person work, and citing sources using MLA format. Although I had already learned the basics of many of these learning objectives throughout my high school education this course helped better enhance these skills and better prefect my writing for the future courses and careers.

As the Fall 2017 term comes to end, I look back on what I have accomplished in this class. English 102 – Composition II was one of the most challenging and toughest class I have taken at UW-Stout, but feel as though it has helped me to improve my writing skills. Even before the semester started the feeling of anxiety had taken over, as writing has never been my strongest skill, but stayed positive and confident I would be successful. Much to my surprise, my instructor, Michael Critchfield quickly addressed that this class would not be easy and amazingly changed my views of writing throughout the entire semester.

My high school and middle school experience might have been different from others. My experience contained less writing and more vocabulary and story elements in books and film. I predicted that English 101 would have more lessons of grammar and strategies to increase length of writing assignments. For what I have experienced in this class, grammar and spelling is taught through writing assignments by having the student learn from his/her mistakes after each assignment. Although I was not prepared for the amount of writing this class assigned. The assignment I was most prepared for was the Refutation essay. I believe I have done a better job because of some tips my friend gave me about the outline process. The assignment I was least prepared for was the advertisement analysis essay. I have always been terrible with “reading between the lines” for photographs and videos. Although the concept of that made the advertisement assignment the most difficult, the most difficult concept of this class was reaching the minimum length required for the essay. This was difficult because of my limited experience in writing a four-page paper. To help write my essay, my friend gave me a tip she learned from her teacher in Denver. She told me to break the outlines body paragraphs into general questions to answer. After answering the questions, put them together and alter them to flow. This strategy increased the length of my rough drafts to be longer than needed. This also made my papers more

Through the course of the semester, I have improved my writing organization skills by learning to do prep work before writing like analyzing the prompt, laying out an outline, and researching evidence prior to writing. By doing this I have made it simple to generate a thesis, display concise and professional composition, and overall improve my quality of work. From the past, I have always seen my writing as weak and flawed by cause of, not properly formatting and expanding further on my rationale. I do not believe I was properly taught to write an essay. I have sought help to improve, but writing has always been a difficulty for me from the start and unmotivated to write. That is why I’ve always struggled in any English class. With that background information in mind, I still did not let that take the best of me. I am aware of my weakness and it only makes me want to improve. For example, when writing the first assignment I did not correctly format my paper because I did not take the time to do so. Learning from that experience onto my next assignment I created an outline and from that, I saw a dramatic change in my writing. Just by formatting my paper, my work was better expressed and easier for my audience to comprehend. That is why I chose to take English 101 to help articulate my thoughts on paper and create a solid argument, and overall have room for improvement.

Growing up, English was always a struggle for me, I didn’t like to read or write and, I always found myself, especially trying to avoid reading at all costs. Up until first grade Spanish was all I knew, so when I began school I had to learn the language everyone already knew, English. English scared me and became difficult as I feared that I was falling behind in a subject I should have already know. Soon I found out I was right, during the dreaded parent conferences where my parents were told I was below reading and writing levels. My parents tried to encourage me write and read more but I had no interest as at the time I felt that I was always gonna be behind in English no matter how hard I tried. Later when I got high school things changed, I took an advanced English class just challenge myself after that class, I continued with advanced placement courses as I knew it was time to change my mentality. After high school when I tested into English 49, I became disappointed with my results of finding out that I needed to take English 49, as I believed my writing skills were slightly more developed. Today I am glad that I got the opportunity to take English 49 as with this course this semester I have improved in structuring and organizing a five plus paragraph essay, in grammar and punctuation and, in the analysis of an author's writing.

As I have needed involvement in perusing and composing English has turned into my most dreaded subject. It happens to be my exclusive frail spot in my ideal scholarly record. Other than web-based social networking, I can't review understanding anything since "Shakespeare" it was appointed to me by my tenth grade English educator. Not that I read a great deal before that, I don't recall perusing any books in my previous years of school either. With regards to English my cerebrum feels like corroded apparatus canvassed in bug catching networks in an old machine attempting to fire up without precedent for hundreds of years.

English has always been my second least favorite subject. No matter it will always be a subject I don’t like because of all the writing. Since junior year in high school however, I think I have been enjoying it a lot more. Throughout this class I learnt new things, not a lot of new thing, but new important things. I have improved in my use of quotations, something I have struggled with since sophomore year of high school. I still have hiccups from time to time, but that’s just part of the writing process. All the revising made me realize I make a lot of the same mistakes in each paper, so I should work harder to eliminate those mistakes all together. We wrote a lot of things, we revised a lot of things, but the essay I will be talking about are Writing Task B and Essay 1. These two essays mark two different stages in this class and I am going too discuss how I went about writing these and how the final product, in my own opinion, came out.

You have been selected to hear all about what I have learned about in English class this semester! I have chosen you because I know of your interest in becoming an author one day, and I think maybe this way you can get an idea of what college writing is like. This year in English 105, I explored several forms of writing. From a personal essay, to a review, a research paper, a rhetorical analysis, a group research project, and a remediation. Through writing these pieces, I have developed my skills in rhetorical knowledge, processes, critical thinking, reading, and composing, and knowledge of conventions. Included with this letter are two pieces of work from the semester that I have chosen to revise. The first is my rhetorical analysis titled Fires in California, and the second is my review of a tea shop titled One Steep at a Time.

Firstly, your class has taught me many things about English. For example, you taught us the correct way to annotate a text and how to be more clear while trying to say/ write something. Also, you have educated me how to write an article reflection. Additionally, I have learned many different facts about Shakespeare when we did the research on him. In fact, I have also been taught many new words that I would have never heard from the WODs. Also, you taught me not to use be-verbs to make sentences more interesting. Furthermore, you told me the difference of paraphrasing and explaining something. Making connections to the text or article is another lesson you have instilled me this year. I also know how to cite text and provide a concise summary of a text.

This past semester, was my first semester back in school after my two year vacation following high school. When I walked into English 101 the first day I was a little bit nervous; I was worried that I had forgotten everything, and english was never my strong point to begin with. I Immediately felt a sense of relief after a couple weeks passed and I got my gears turning again. We would go over all of the basic elements of a good piece of writing, try to identify them ourselves, and then discuss our opinions with other classmates. This really helped refresh me on all of the forgotten writing skills I learned in K-12.

Throughout this course, I have grown as a writer and learned many things I was previously unaware of. What I pictured English 101 to entail is nothing compared to what I experienced. Going into this class, I was thinking in the most negative tone: “There is no way I am going to be able to write four full pages,” “There is not enough time to write papers,” “The work load is overwhelming,” “There is only four summarize grades.” However, these thoughts quickly became reversed as the year progressed as I was pushed to limits I did not even know I had. As I began writing, I became more aware of my strengths and weakness, enjoyments and frustrations, and future plans and goals.

This semester is coming to an end soon. As I reflect on my work in you English 073 class, I can see very clear how much I have learned and improved as a reader as well as a write since the start of the semester. Being in your class has showed me a very valuable lesson which is how to recognize my strengths and weaknesses and learned from them. During the course of this semester, I was able to engage in several assignments and peer edited few of them. The feedbacks that you gave me helped me a lot because it made me conscious of my mistakes and what I needed to to fix them. In the reading section, my portfolio includes the following, The other Wes Moore assignments intro through chapter 4. In the writing section, the portfolio includes the following, definition, narrative, descriptive

English was and has been my weakest subject since I was introduced to it in Kindergarten, and until this day. I often understand concepts related to math and science, however, vocabulary, spelling, critical analysis, speaking, and reading are skills I find hard to master. In fact, some ideas seem to go through one ear, and out the other. I never understood English’s importance when I was a kid. Instead of exploring the different concepts, I thought that grammar, vocabulary, spelling, etc. were not as important as math or science. I was unaware of how important English was when I was younger, causing me to not care much about reading, writing, or speaking. Now that I have a bit more experience in the real world, I understand that English is essential to lead a successful life. This is due to the fact that English can help someone mentally, physically, and overtime, financially. Due to my late notice, I fell behind in English, which shows through my reading level, writing, and vocabulary. Despite the tough times and headaches that were forced upon me as an English student, I still remain diligent and put in massive amounts of effort into each assignment.

Taking english at the college level has really opened my eyes. That I must really apply myself to become better in my school work. When I was in high school I would only do what was asked. Nothing more, nothing less because I just wanted to do the bare minimum to get by. Which was about a C or B grade and I was okay with that. However, now in english 105 I have been faced with challenges throughout the course. Consisting of reading, writing and critical thinking, key components in the class to improve on. Practicing them in english class, but also my other classes which has helped. Since entering college I learned that I must not take anything for granted. The teachers are always there, and sometimes provide a teacher assistant to help us. Setting us up for success throughout the semester. In the beginning of the semester I wasn’t applying myself to the fullest, however convincing myself that I could work hard, and pass with the help of my teacher I could accomplish that.

BAKA! Screamed the blonde Tsundere girl as she punched the poor boy protagonist who had accidentally chosen to take a shower at the wrong time. As I watched this comedy duo on my companion’s phone, I felt strangely compelled to keep on watching and couldn’t help but feel an urge to ask what in the world I was watching. Then that question was answered with “Nisekoi” and after hearing those words from my companion I started questioning their ability to speak English or any language in a matter of fact. I started telling them they go see a speech therapist for their problems “That with the right help even a microcephalic addlepate as yourself can find a cure.” Pretty sure they never realized I was implying that they were an imbecile, it’s sad really. Regardless of this they informed me that what I was watching was not any normal animations nor was it from this country actually. They told me that I was watching and I quote “ANIMU” until they correct themselves and said “Anime”. I never had a real “Anime” though I had a idea because of how people associated this word with shows like DBZ or that one show with the monster cards. “I put my Pikachu in defence mode I put a poke card facing down and I end my turn.” This was proof that I had no real background knowledge behind this concept but putting jokes aside I really didn’t know anything about the entire world of anime. After the episode finished, I was left with many questions left after learning about this side anime so I kept