Reflection Essay

Many people experience exclusion in their lives; yet, when they feel included, they experience the process of healing. In the memoir Coming Back Stronger: Unleashing the Power of Adversity, Dw Brees’ journey to healing is explored. This experience of exclusion to inclusion is also discussed in Becoming Human by Jean Vanier. The New Orleans Saints accepted Drew, a severely injured quarterback at the time, just as Jean Vanier accepted people with intellectual disabilities into L’Arche. Withal, Drew is given the opportunity to motivate and inspire his team, and those people included in the L’Arche community are given the opportunity to develop new, meaningful relationships. For Drew, having this opportunity results in a milestone for the whole team that represents hope for New Orleans, while the people with intellectual disabilities being able to be in an inclusive community result in the maturity of the heart. Both works suggest that being inclusive towards other people, especially those excluded in society, by welcoming them into a particular community result in a person’s internal and external healing.

Proficient writing is an essential skill in all aspects of academic and professional achievement. English 101, Introduction to Composition and Rhetoric, provided the framework to good writing, teaching me composition and rhetoric fundamentals, polishing up my grammar and style, and expressing a clear message. English 102, Composition, Rhetoric, and Research, continued to build on the skills I learned in English 101, focusing on the subject matter research process and employing various rhetorical and literary devices to better express a clear message to the reader. The course also improved my critical thinking capacity, allowing me to culturally evaluate my target audience, present logically flowing arguments using appropriate language and structure, and critically reviewing my writing projects for content and expression. Every writer inherently knows there’s always room to improve and I hold fast to this mindset in all academic, professional, and personal writing projects. English 102 has both challenged and inspired me to grow into a much better writer than before I began the class, providing the necessary skills to be not just a good writer, but a great writer.

Throughout my academic career, I haven’t given writing much of a chance. Instead, I gravitated towards math and science subjects. I believed that writing wasn’t one of my strengths, which caused me to not enjoy past composition courses. This opinion changed during my writing process for “Strategic Devices,” my rhetorical analysis of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail. As I analyzed the skillfully crafted letter, I was reminded of how powerful writing can be, and, when used for good, words can transform the situation that they are spoken into. In English 121, I have learned many new aspects of writing, grown as a writer, and developed a fresh perspective towards composition. Through this progress, I hope to become a positive impact in my sphere of influence.

Such as in this case, peer reviewing was a crucial step in creating my final draft. A large portion of my revisions revolved around the process of developing my ‘argument.’ I was not confident that I had effectively produced an essay that related entirely back to my central contention. Thus, with every draft, I asked my peers for feedback on what they saw as the central contention and whether or not I reflected it throughout my entire essay. In my first

The first smart goals I chose are to learn to become a leader and to have better time management skills. I chose these because I work on a small unit with no assigned charge nurse. Any day you go in to work it could be your day to be charge nurse so everyone on the unit needs to be able to step up and be a leader. Time management is a skill that every nurse needs to learn. In my opinion, if you have good time management skills it can decrease your stress level and make your workday more organized and enjoyable.

I found the peer review process of this essay very helpful, not only with grammatical errors and tense usage, but also with the overall style of my essay. The next assignment was a second rhetorical analysis, which was actually my favorite of the semester, possibly because it also was the easiest for me, based on my past writing experience and what I learned from the first essay. I had learned that it was basically a paper with a lot of opinion but some facts or information from the sources provided in my point of view. I feel this helped develop my voice because it enabled me to learn how to summarize and paraphrase correctly, yet still reflect my concepts. At this point I also could clearly see the rhetorical situation in the assignment: the purpose was to provide an opinion on a subject matter that would theoretically influence someone on whether or not to believe in the authors view, the audience was my professor but also all my peers and anyone who might be interested in watching that subject.

The most advantageous learning I had through the process of research and in the time of this class, was when I was presented with the opportunity to teach literacy and foster diversity by becoming a mentor in a local program called Reading Buddies. As a mentor, I assisted elementary students who have fallen behind in mastering literacy, to help improve their skills in English writing and reading comprehension. Many of these students are those of immigrant families, who are currently facing hardships adjusting to schooling because English has been learned as their second language. I have always been passionate about education, so naturally, I took interest in providing help where the structural violence of our non-accommodating American

I have contributed actively to achieve excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service. In the area of teaching, I have successfully taught one of the multi-section core chemistry courses (i.e., CHEM I and CHEM I-lab courses) and an upper-level course, Survey of Instrumentation for non-chemistry majors. As described in faculty plan, engaging and motivating students to promote their learning is one of the important teaching objectives as an educator. I have demonstrated excellence in teaching by active collaborative learning inside the classroom. Students actively involved in collaborative group assignments by working in pairs or small group to find solutions to challenging real-life situation problems. I utilized “Think-Pair-Share”

I was conscious of my vocabulary from having read numerous books daily as a child, but was negligent in the field of theme statements, theses, and all other writing techniques. Now, I feel confident that I possess the necessary qualities to write a formal essay. I have always felt distain hearing improper grammar; therefore, I never use it myself. Before, I felt self-conscious using line after line of description while setting a scene in a creative story, having now read Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, this fear of overdoing description has long passed. Although strengths determine the success of an author, their weaknesses are just as prominent in their work.

At some point in our lives, we have all asked the question “What is the purpose of school? Why must I learn this? The first time I can recall myself experiencing these sentiments was when I started French immersion. This subject has always presented a struggle for me as I have always felt that it is rather difficult which was amplified due to the lack of help that I received from my parents, as neither could speak French unlike many of my peers’ parents. Your teachers as well as the principal in schools also play a major impact in your education journey and can ultimately shape your education experience. These challenges can impact all students in some way however, it is important to approach these challenges head on in order to succeed and reach your goals including making yourself and your parents proud.

In my English classes, a popular assignment is analyzing the literature in an essay after reading a novel. You may think that because I had this assignment multiple times already, that I would be good at it by now. I should definitely be able to write it without any hesitation or problem. However, that is not the case, unfortunately. When analyzing literature, I still have a long way to go. I still have a lot of techniques and ways to pick up that would help make my writing more efficient. My brain is definitely still developing new strategies that could come in handy when writing. Although sometimes I believe that I am alright at analyzing literature, I do often times have writer’s block and can not seem to come up with an analyzation. Thankfully, due to my most recent English teacher, I had a lot of help and improved myself greatly. I feel confident in the quotes that I pick, confident in the commentary I am writing, and confident in the way I phrase it. I have developed my own techniques as to analyzing literature in order to write an essay along the way.

I have completed courses in philosophy, creative writing, community-based cross-cultural experience, cultural psychology, psychology, theology, old and new testament and world history. These courses have helped me to understand human nature with regard to human logic, moral reasoning, and social norms that vary between cultures. Upon completion of these courses I have learned that health outcome is influenced by multiple factors including the environment, level of health literacy, and how one interacts with others and solve problems based on social and cultural norms.

One of the greatest challenges I have faced during my high school career occurred during my sophomore year. It was during the planning of this year that I had decided to commit myself to completing a difficult course schedule while continuing to be active in school activities including clubs and various sports. As a part of my course load, I had chosen to register for AP World History, which historically speaking, is one of the most demanding courses offered at Avon High School because of the wealth of reading and memorization required to establish a strong understanding of the materials. My brother had successfully taken the class several years earlier and felt it was pivotal in helping him better understand the world, as well as cultural and religious differences. My parents on the other hand were resistant, and tried to persuade me to take other classes to seek this type of understanding, but I felt strongly that I could face the challenges that came with this class and grow through the experience.

As I sit here and write this literacy narrative, I reflect on a time in eighth grade when I read a book regrading civil injustice. Back then I wouldn’t have thought to use such fancy words. Instead, something along the lines of “a black boy my age got killed for whistling at a woman! And the murderers didn’t even get in trouble.” So much confusion was attached with my not so politically correct summary of the book. In fact, we read this book in the upmost politically correct way as possible. Derogatory terms such as negro, nigger, and colored was to be renamed and replaced by the word African American. Simple. Nothing too hard to do in eighth grade just switch a word or two around. But how ironic we didn’t go over any set “rules” for the white character’s. No negative connotation related to the word “white” at all. In fact, when we had class discussions for this book it was normal to say “Hiram the white boy went to visit his grandfather in Mississippi.” But if I was to talk about Emmett Till, African American would always be attached to his name. I can admit just like any other person in that class it was weird but we never put too much thought behind it. Just abided by the rules and read.

When I first started this class I had no idea what to expect, I was nervous since this was my first college English class. After the first couple of classes, I realized I did not have anything to worry about. You were a great teacher that I got along with well. When we had our conference projects mid-semester I was feeling very good about what the second half of the semester.