Reflection Essay

When I first got accepted into Stuyvesant High School, I heard countless of rumors stating: “Oh the workload is terrible”, “The competition is so fierce” or “Out of schoolwork, extracurriculars, or sleep: you can only pick two.” I found it hard to let it faze me, since I graduated from one of the most prestigious middle schools. However, the rumors transformed into reality when I stepped into Mr. Nieves’ Freshman Composition Class. The workload at the beginning of the year was brutal, coupled with assignments from other core classes that seem unaware of the workload of other teachers. Reading assignments were a regular, and there were journal entries and occasional quizzes to keep us in line. What made it bearable was the friends I made in that class; everyone had their own opinion about the topic we were talking about, and listening to other perspectives really broadened my horizon and enriched my learning experience in Stuy. Another thing that this class has taught me is the importance of time management, a skill that I will carry on for the rest of my high school career and life. When I choose to sign up for Mr. Nieves’ AP American Literature class in my Junior Year, I was hoping to relive the discussion-based lesson plans and meet more outstanding peers. I was not disappointed, to say the least, reflecting through all the experiences at the end of the course. The lesson plans he laid out for us were an interesting mix between small lectures and class output, and what I

It is still so surreal to reflect back on my first semester as an incoming college student in the ENC1101 course, analyzing at my progression as a reader and writer in literacy. Since the first day of class I set in stone my goals for this class: receive a 4.0 GPA, develop my connecting theories skills in writing, and become more aware of objectives for each Unit throughout the course. All of these goals became achievements that not only make others proud but most importantly give me self pride. In order to earn the grades and achieve these goals, I went after every opportunity that I was given as an incoming college student, such as office hours and extra credit. By taking this course I have gained confidence with the utilization of literacy, and made an addition to my group of impactful literacy sponsors. Once students are finished with high school they assume that there is nothing else to learn beyond the stereotypical five paragraph essay, but they are so wrong. I was able to obtain so much knowledge about numerous course concepts from Writing about Writing, articles, and my professor. These concepts will carry on with me throughout a bright future of writing courses, job interviews, and any other skills that require literacy. The four outcomes listed below will help illuminate how I improved as a writer, by being a driven college student and going out of the way to earn my achievements in this course. In the first outcome I improved comprehending scholar texts,

For some, a conversation is scary and hopefully avoidable with a smile while others don't think twice about the way something is said. In the article "The Everyday Anxiety of the Stutterer," by Joseph P Carter, he explains what it's like living day to day with a stutter.

On the first day of school I was in a class full of students. Oh, I hated my first day of classes very much because I could not handle the thought of having to introduce myself to everyone especially with the problem I had. I sat there nervously as I observed the others confidently and happily introducing them self to the audience. I just had the urge to slip under my chair and just hide there until I could escape my turn. Unfortunately, I could not avoid my turn and ended up introducing myself. "HiiiimynameeisJaskiran." As my face filled with embarrassment and humiliation, I thought of all the possible thoughts that approached the minds of the other students in response to me attempting to introduce myself. All too common I could imagine students saying, "Did she happen to forget her name?", "Can she talk a little slower?", or "What is wrong with her?". Times like this, made me wonder about my lack of speech skills in front of a group of people. Why do I either speak so fast-- where what I say sounds like one word-- or when I speak I am not able to clearly pronounce the syllables of a word? As I began to research, I realized this difficulty, complicated style of speaking is called stuttering. Why do people stutter? A mystery that has yet to be unraveled.

There, I had the privilege of seeing an Early-Intervention Speech Therapist work with one of my students. She would sit on the floor and play games with him. Through these games, she was able to elicit verbalization from this child who normally grunted to communicate. Over a course of a year, I witnessed his communication skills enhance little-by-little with the assistance of this therapist. I had not realized how much he had improved until I saw him interacting with his friends at the dress-up center. This little boy who would once play alone on the floor was now requesting different objects and laughing with his friends. Recollecting his progress was phenomenal. Inspired by what I saw, I researched more about the field. While doing so, my mother disclosed to me that she and her father had an articulation disorder. Although my grandfather did not receive services, my mother received therapy in school, which she recalls as an unpleasant experience. Taking into account all that I witnessed and learned about the subject, I realized that I had found the middle ground between teacher and therapist that I had been searching for in Speech-Language Pathology.

After 60 years of stuttering, Hoagland reminisces about his struggles and triumphs to overcome his stuttering. While attending school, he learned that, “Life can become a matter of measuring the importance of anything you have to say.” He felt that it was

My name is Tandie, and I am a student at Texas State. Most people walk by me everyday not even realizing that I have an impairment, that is, until I open my mouth. Try not to take that in the wrong way, I'm actually very bright. However, if Dr. Burns told me to read this paper in front of the entire class, I would most likely drop the course. This is due to the fact that when I was a child, I was diagnosed with Speech Disfluency, or “stuttering.” Although I've taken countless years of speech therapy, I cannot make it through a conversation without stuttering. But, I don't allow that to hold me back in life. What most people don't realize is that people with speech impairments usually have great communication skills,

I grew up with a stutter. I wished I had embraced my speech impediment and allowed myself to promote the ways in which I am able to communicate effectively with people instead of dwelling on the difficulty I had in my speech. It was tough for me to speak in front of people throughout grade school, as I would try to get all my words out as clearly as possible even though it was difficult for me to do so. Instead of embracing my slight fallibility, I was ashamed and did not want to acknowledge that I had an impediment. I spoke little in public. As I progressed through high school and the early years of college, I made an effort to improve my speech by forcing myself to take advantage of speaking opportunities. Even as my speech improved, it was still uncomfortable for me to admit that I had an impediment. It was not until my junior year of college that I realized I could use my other refined capabilities in communications in order to connect with people. In lieu of my speaking, I capitalized on my written communication skills and it showed through creating health education materials, assisting show production at CNN, developing a communication for development media initiative in the Solomon Islands, and now currently as the Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Undergraduate Journal of Public Health. Consistent development in my writing ability allowed me to develop the confidence upon improving my

A humanistic concept of communication, including proper language and articulation skills, has fascinated mankind for centuries. Our ability to verbally relay thoughts, feelings, ideas, and information to one another proves to be a crucial aspect of social and interpersonal relationships. Regardless of any precautions we take regarding speech preservations at an early age, various speech, voice, or language disorders remain prevalent in society. I recently had the opportunity to participate in a speech/voice/language clinical observation and witness a therapy secession between two clinicians and a young child with a childhood onset fluency disorder. The patient, despite living with this disorder from birth, displayed little to no signs of orthodox stuttering characteristics; however, she portrayed various core

It is often the case where stuttering can easily be controlled in therapy, however, in a naturalistic environment, where individuals are engaging in multiple tasks that might interfere with each other, controlling stuttering even with a fluency technique becomes a challenge. This is an important study for clinicians to be aware of in order to be able to assist PWS with managing fluent speech while they participate simultaneously in a higher cognitive or linguistic

I assumed that each person was going to be in a hurry and would be frustrated to listen to me “struggle.” Overall, I was fairly surprised at the patience I received. Although, some of the people tried to finish my sentences or guess what I was trying to say, I did accomplish my goal in 9/10 of the phone calls. Completing this exercise really put me in the shoes of a diffluent speaker. I can’t imagine living with disfluencies all the time and dealing with impatient people. I believe that the reactions I received over the phone would have been much more difficult if I was in person. I have a greater understanding about the life of a stutter from completing this

When I write, I believe one of my strengths is that I am able to generate logical perspectives and strong conclusions. I am able to analyze the literature and relate to it in many different ways. In the compare and contrast essay I wrote, "Oliver conveys a tone of remembrance by juxtaposing 'the old burn-dump this waste place' and 'this secret garden'". I am able to apply literary terms and analyze how the author uses them to enhance their writing. In the same essay, I stated, "By using short, concise sentences, Oliver is more direct in her delivery and showing her lamentations for what has happened to the earth around her". I am able to analyze what the author is doing and the effect that it has on the reader.

Stuttering is often observed in children and can persist into adults, although it will often be resolved before puberty (Plante & Beeson, 2012). Asim’s fluency disorder started in childhood, but he does not know what caused him to start stuttering. His theory as to how he started stuttering is that it is hereditary. Asim’s dad also stuttered, and so he thinks it was his genetics that may have caused him to start stuttering. His other theory is that he started stuttering due to one of the traumatic experiences he had in his young life. Although it is widely accepted that traumatic disturbances do not induce stuttering in children (Plante & Beeson, 2012), that is Asim’s personal opinion on a possible cause of his disorder.

my senior year of high school, I was the FFA president at Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau High School. As president, I tried to make sure everything was done on time, but by the end of the year I was a little worn out. Irritated with having to do everything myself I tried to delegate but still ended up doing mostly everything. My officer team had clocked out for the year and I was upset. Sitting in an officer meeting one day before school, I asked my advisor if there was any chance we could talk to some of the officers about participating more, which was mostly about the officers that never came. Instantly he snapped at me in front of everyone else, including my little sister. In summary he told me I was a bad president and that I blame others for my mistakes. I was so shocked that I didn't even respond. I sat silently crying right next to him avoiding all eye contact. This was when it all started.

However, one thing I never had a problem doing was speaking in front of my friends. They knew I had a problem speaking, but they never seemed to mind. They would help me whenever I needed a few words. They never judged me for my speech impediment. My friends were actually jealous because I was the only one to get out of class. They would tell me, “Gosh, you are so lucky to get out of class every day during Language.” Or, “How cool would it be if we went to speech