Reflection Essay

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,

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body”, said Joseph Addison, an English essayist. I believe that reading helps one grow and reach their desired goals. Personally, I am still on my journey, and my past and present English teachers were the main aides. My critical reading skills prior to this class were satisfactory. I was able to find symbols, metaphors, and basic literary devices similar to those, but I would rarely be able to deeply connect them to an overarching motif or seek how they contribute to a character’s actions. Often, I would read past a significant literary device, so I would need reassuring from my classmates and teachers to help me to fully understand how that piece is important.

Upon my enrollment in high school, I joined multiple student organizations. I have been a member of my High School’s marching band, the Sound of Pride (SOP), since the eighth grade and have continued to participate every season. I marched both trombone and euphonium before becoming the Assistant Drum Major as a sophomore in the 2016 season. This past season, I was named the band’s Drum Major, becoming the school’s first junior to ever hold the title. After the conclusion of the marching band season, I perform with the TCHS Symphonic Wind Ensemble for both a winter and spring concert. During the spring, I also perform with the TCHS High Tide Steel Pan Band. I have been a member of both bands since freshman year. At the start of my junior year, I became the pianist for the TCHS Chorus. This year, I also joined the TCHS Drama Club and participated in the club-sponsored One-Act Play titled, “The Great American Talent Show.” Finally, the my sophomore year, I was chosen to be one of the six members of the Georgia Secretary of State Student Ambassadors to represent my high school and Tattnall County. Through this program, my team and I educate our community about how our government works and volunteer at local voting polls and municipalities. I was chosen to be a part of this team again at the start of this semester.

The challenging 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 be a successful writer throughout college. In high school, essays often gave me anxiety and stress, however, when taking English 10, I was able to learn to enjoy the process and the art 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 get a lot more out of this course. To showcase my progress in this course, I have included my essay from project 2 a rhetorical analysis titled, “Black Lives Matter!” and a research essay from project 3 titled “Why is Racism dangerous?”, which effectively demonstrate my growth as a creative writer, reader, and thinker.

I spent the first years of my life in Pensacola, Florida. I was raised by a single parent, my Mom, and learned a lot about independence and women’s rights. Pensacola is a Navy town and she worked at the base. She would invite Navy people to our home during the holidays which taught me a lot about diversity. I learned a lot about from the people that came to visit and we had good times. They were in all colors and from various parts of the country. By the time I was in school, I had no fear of people different than me because of my exposure at home. In high school desegregation and bussing was taking place. Tension was running high and fights were breaking out nearly daily. A mixed-race group of us met at a girl’s house with the idea that we had no significant or insolvable differences and that we needed to find a way to stop the violence. We had a productive meeting and found common ground. The meeting took hold and the word got around that things needed to calm down. We needed the police to leave campus and we needed to take care of our own problems. It was a valuable experience. After High School, I went to a 2-year college and got a degree in Law Enforcement. That didn’t take hold well as my experience with the local police department was not good. I found them to be junk yard thugs, violent, and sex offenders of sorts. It was also a time I discovered my true love: skydiving. A friend of mine talked me into making my first jump with him. I was always fascinated with the

As I read J. K. Rowling’s commencement speech for a graduating class of Harvard University, I found myself connecting with the text on a very personal level. As I reread the speech for tis assignment I was able to reconnect with the text and old memories came rising up to the surface of my mind. I connected with the following quote: “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all- in which case, you fail by default.” Rowling’s statements regarding failure relate to the time when I failed my math class last year and how that experience changed my life.

For my tutoring component for READ class, I had the opportunity of continuing to tutor my student Ryken. Eleven-year-old Ryken is an incredibly intelligent student, possessing a large vocabulary, however, he struggles distinguishing phoneme sounds while encoding and decoding. In addition to the phonological issues, Ryken’s eyes were crossed when he was young until he got glasses to help the issue. Because of his delayed literacy skills, his parent asked me to tutor him for two, forty-five minute sessions a week. Utilizing the Wilson reading program, I have had the opportunity to tutor Ryken for about thirty lessons. Throughout this time, I have been able to administer testing, teach teach letter sounds, digraphs, blends, closed syllable exceptions, and multisyllabic words.

Prior to the beginning of my sophomore year in high school, I had already decided upon heading to pharmacy school and learning about the profession in detail before eventually graduating with a professional doctorate degree in pharmacy. Taking advantage of the Summer Scholars Advanced College Academy program offered by the local community college, I could participate in secondary dual enrollment while still in high school. Throughout the entire three years from there on out, I would typically attend high school classes in the morning and afternoon and come evening time, I would head over to the college. During my sophomore year, my brother advised to stick with 3- and 4-unit non-science courses to slowly ease myself into this new schedule. Focusing primarily on the relatively lighter breadth requirement courses, I would be endowed with the opportunity to come home, eat a snack, and complete a few homework assignments before heading to class once again but this time, at a different institution.

Tight turns of hatred, steep slopes of everlasting joy, ups and downs and all arounds, my expedition in learning the writing process, writing my first short story and flipping my table over in agony have been nothing short of a never-ending roller coaster ride. There’s a fine line between love and hate and writing sits right on top it covered in chaotic sprinkles and a nice, big, juicy manic cherry on top. My first memory of writing had been in the first grade where I took a writing class and learned about the writing process. It was done in a silly way to help us remember, “brain drain/jot list, sloppy copy, neat sheet, goof proof, last pass” accompanied by goofy dances as well as playful gestures. It was my first exposure to actual writing and it did not appeal much to me at the time due to the excessive steps. To a six-year-old having to make a list of what I wanted to write about, have relevant ideas for each topic in the list, make a rough draft, revise and rewrite said rough draft, proofread the rough draft and final rewrite it once more into my final copy, was just too much to handle. Walking into my writing class each day left me with the sudden plop feeling you get when the roller coaster takes its first fall down the tracks. I recall handing cramps, complaints, and whines about a one paragraph essay. It was agonizing torture to a little kid, yet I would have complained a lot less if I knew what type of writing was in store for me at the age of eight.

Inclusion: Means the action or state of including or of included within a group or structure. In education this means everyone has the same opportunity, there should be no boundaries to stop a learner reaching their full potential in the learning enviroment. (wikipedia)

Throughout this assignment, I worked hard for success and learned a lot from my mistakes along the way. I strongly believe that I have successfully met the criteria and accomplished the requirements for this rant. I was dressed appropriately, with no bright colors or designed shirts, to prevent any distractions whatsoever, however, I had a smart student look, which I would think is the ideal clothing for a rant topic such as mine. I maintained a steady, slow pace, and I frequently stopped moving and turned my body to the camera. I performed this at times I felt were necessary in order for the audience to understand when I am delivering a main idea or main points. “The fact is that our school washrooms are never fully clean and this really pisses me off”. This is an example of when I stopped walking and turned my body to the camera. This line is one of my main points that I wanted my audience to clearly understand. My setting was adequate and relevant to my topic (Bell High School Washrooms). In the start of my rant, I showed a school sign that displayed “Bell High School”, then I walked past the lockers of my school during my introduction. Soon after, when I was talking about girl’s washrooms, I stopped walking in front of one. Furthermore, when I was discussing the interior defects and unsanitary environment, I placed myself in a male washroom, so the audience can have not only a verbal understanding, but also a visual understanding, which I feel had an impact on how much

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.

As a 14 year old reader and writer, I never saw a true significance in the subjects. I would often become flustered and overwhelmed when forced to do a writing assignment. I just couldn’t understand why I was being forced to perform a task that, in my opinion, made no impact on the world around me. However, my Sophomore year, my perception began to change. I had begun taking an Advanced Placement World History class. This class made a big impact on me as a reader and a writer for many reasons. Although, I can’t recall every lesson I was taught during the course of this class, but what I can recall is a much more impactful lesson. The lesson that continues to shape how I view literacy and the modern world.

For the past three and a half years I have participated in the school band. In that time I’ve taken part in concert band, marching band, and jazz band. Setting up my schedule in sixth grade kicked off the adventure.

Upon further review of my past papers, I found some small grammatical errors that needed to be edited. In my unit one paper, there were a few errors that you had marked. I fixed those oversights then continued on with my revisions. In the second paragraph, I moved a comment to after a citation section in order to back up the information with my own thoughts as I had learned a little further in the semester. Another change I had made was to change a word that was repeated multiple times in a sentence. I also revised unit twos paper. I had received a perfect score on my paper, but upon rereading, I noticed a few things that I felt should be changed. They were not big changes, but I believe the modifications helped the information flow