English 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.

English Comp 1 was an eye opening experience. The course was emotionally and physically draining, but I strongly believe it prepared me for Comp 2. Learning and improving are a few of the rewards I received through hard work and dedication during the course. Throughout English comp 1, I discovered my biggest weakness. I improved some of my various difficulties, and I achieved a rewarding high point.

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.

Throughout this year I have learned and accomplished many things in regards to my overall writing. English 112 has taught me many useful skills including different ways to organize and structure my writing, new methods to incorporate critical thinking into my pieces, and even how to better my writing with sentence varieties. The most improved area of my writing after this course is the creation and development of the opening thesis statement.

The toilsome component this semester was transitioning from being a high school level writer to a college-level writer. However, English 10 has by far been my best experience in writing. By taking this course I have retrieved many helpful elements, that will help me become a successful writer throughout college. In high school, essays often gave me stress and anxiety, however, when taking English 10, I was able to learn to enjoy the process of writing purposefully and mindfully. Even though, I have taken advanced placement English courses in high school and have taken a practice run of college level English over the summer with Professor Brenda Venezia, I was still able to retrieve a lot more from this course. To showcase my progress in

What have I learned in English 102? When I began this class, I had not taken a formal English class in over thirty years. I understood sentence structure and essay writing to a point. To elaborate my understanding was based on story telling rather than research and factual commentary. Of course, rhetorical review and research was foreign to me. I had a loose understanding but had never practiced or been in a position to apply these skills. Or at least that is what I thought. Since beginning this course, I have found it both challenging and enlightening. I feel that my skills have developed over the last few weeks and a greater understanding of what it takes to identify and understand complicated subjects has progressed. Not just that I can read difficult scholarly text, but that I can focus on what they are trying to say, their argument, and then develop my own counter argument in support of or against the authors statements. It is more than just saying I concur or I do not agree with you. It is stating how my point of view differs and supporting my statements logically and directly with facts, not just conjecture. Within the following paragraphs I will discuss, in more detail, the specific areas where I feel I have matured and how I intend to apply this new-found knowledge to my future writing as well as reading materials to assess their value.

Throughout the course of English 16, I have improved my writing. The worksheets and notes provided helps me become a better writer than I was when I first stepped into the classroom. Revising my paper after the second draft or ‘final copy’ helped me better under the process and time that must be in to make a perfect paper. In the course, there were four assignments, a research paper, a research proposal, diagnostic essay and a essay about appearance.

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.

If I were an English Language Learner (ELL), I would desire to have an educator as accomplished and compassionate as Mrs. Yglesias. Her mindset of treating all her students equally is exemplary. When I first started observing her instruction, I was unsuspecting where the ELL or exceptional students were seated. All the students blended very well together. The children are carefully integrated around the classroom according to their behavior, not their ability. The teacher’s main objective is to control distractions, since during her instruction she delivers an array of phenomenal strategies. In this case, her tactics function effortlessly and every child is fully engaged. There was no observation of any tattle telling or someone refusing to

Because my primary language is English it was hard for me to fully understand how problematic it may be for students whose native language isn’t English. Some of the students I worked with did not participate in the English lessons taught by Mr. Cawson because it would be too difficult for them to understand. After the lesson the class would break off into small groups of two or three to work on vocabulary while some students chose to work on individual tasks such as reading and writing. During this time, I would have worked with a small group of Chinese students on different English tasks, such as reading and writing. This time benefited the students who were not at the same level as the rest of the class due to their recent switch to Glencairn

Throughout Honors English II, I not only became a more advanced reader, I also became a more experienced writer. All throughout the semester, I learned to analyze works of literature and look for themes in the novels I read, which also helped me to become a more thoughtful writer. I also greatly improved my vocabulary throughout the semester, which helped me achieve more advanced writing and reading skills. Overall, by using new writing techniques and new vocabulary, I was able to build on my previous reading and writing skills, and I hope to see a continuation of advancement in my reading and writing abilities in the years to come.

During this observation I was able to view Ms. Yanik Second grade English as a Second Language classroom. This specific classroom was a pullout instructional format and they were focusing on science weather lesson. In this classroom, there are six students, half of which were from Haiti and the other half were from two different Spanish speaking countries. Due to the fact that the students were not all from the same country the English proficiency varied from the beginner to some students who were considered at the intermediate level. In this classroom, there were two specific students that did not speak a word of English, but they could comprehend what was being said to them.

This first semester at the University of Akron has flown by. I learned many new writing concepts that helped me become a better writer. English composition was a required class that I had to take in order to get my degree. Although this class was required I still wanted to take this class to become more knowledgeable about writing. Coming into English Composition I was worried about all of the papers and the workload that I would have to complete. I knew that I was going to have to write a lot more than I previously had in highschool, but I was unsure of just how much. The works that I decided to include in my portfolio comprise of my Literacy Narrative, Image Analysis Paper, and essay titled Mayas Hardships based on Maya’s experiences in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I selected these works because I felt that they are the ones that require the most improvement to them. The papers i've chosen show how far I’ve came In English Composition.

It is important that I notice this because, if I were his teacher, I would know that he is not comfortable working/contributing when working with whole groups on tasks that require the use of English. Therefore, I would try to place him in small groups, so he can freely

Note to teachers: With beginners, mime and movement are essential. Don’t worry if students cannot understand everything you say, speak slowly and use lots of body language to convey instructions. For beginners, understanding and conveying basic meaning is much more important than using perfect grammar. Encourage students to use any English they have available to get their point across. Remember, learning a language is not a linear process. Level: Beginner with some prior English Time: 1.25 hours Materials: Bring some everyday objects to class (preferably one for each student) choose a few things from different categories, like clothing, food, and household items. Also bring paper and pens