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,

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.

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

Doors, oceans, cities, all these different descriptions have been used by different people to describe their mind. However, my mind is a never-ending slide show, with me sitting down watching different slides constantly flash before me on the projector. Their random most of the time, but I can choose which slide goes up when I need it. However, there is one slide that sneakily gets into the projector, I don’t remember putting it there, but it always manages to get in. Whenever this slide appears, shackles come out of my chair and traps me, forces me to look at this memory. I remember it well, I was around 10 or 11, I was sitting in my room playing a board game by myself, see my sisters were always busy and I didn’t have friends to play with, so I always played by myself. Then while playing I start realizing that I'm alone, I cry while the light shines above as I play this board game by myself, with no one around, I was lonely.

There are many lessons I learned in a little over a year. June 24, 2016, I remember standing on the stage at CSU when the old district president gave her words of wisdom to me and I received the district flag. Our first event as an officer team we elected the secretary, treasurer, and parliamentarian. When Sarah, the old district president, stood up to nominate me for Parliamentarian I looked at her like she was crazy. I never thought that I would get the spot until they announced my name as the new parliamentarian. As a new team, we went to New Mexico as a new team and I met some people that are fun but I never thought they would become my best friends. I remember thinking that they were some of the best when we were sitting around telling embarrassing stories and Kyle, The State president, told his most embarrassing and everyone else just laughed. When we said goodbye it was hugs, tears and until next times.

In this class we have a credo, and in that credo there are some key words that were capitalized: Read, Think, Write, College Level, rigorously, Holistically, Learning, Safe, and Fun. Everyone has their own way of defining words, some maybe the same and some may be different but that’s ok. In this essay I am going to thoroughly and efficiently explain to you in my own words what each of these words mean to me in the context of this course.

I began tutoring incarcerated adults at Jennifer Roads Detention Center during my freshman year at Howard. Each week, I drive over an hour from Howard to Anne Arundel County. I park, leave my life in the car, walk through the security x-ray, and wait for an on duty officer to take my fellow Petey Greene tutor and I through the facility to the designated room. Walking through the jail, I take stock of my life and my goals. During my time at Howard University I have learned so much from allowing new experiences, to continue shaping my life. As these experiences change my perceptions of the world, my passion for medicine and desire to work with others in the practice of medicine have grown.

I learned a lot in my life like math, history, fitness, health, etc. Though I always had one curriculum that catch my interest than others. That subject would be english as the one that caught my eye as one might say. I was always fansticated with the certain techniques and skills you can learn from it. The expressiveness that people can learn from that subject and put what they learn into something big like for example writing an play, movie, skits, etc is truly something special. So as young adult I find myself willing to learn these intrestic skills that many talented writers have master and I have belief that my techniques will be sharpen to mastery. In english 102 I can proudly say that those beliefs did happen as the class went further through days and weeks so did my progression as a researcher and writer that in factly impact my future career. I own to the teacher and support programs in the school that provided me this which I couldn’t thrive without.

Not many people attribute hardship to the actuality that they are the initial root of the issue. In my instance, a speech disorder restricted my ability to effectively communicate; however, a subconscious attribution lead me to limit my social interaction. My failure to extort the idea of structured redevelopment immobilized the outcome of effective action.

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)

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.

Giving back to the community is a passion of mine. The most rewarding experiences in my life have been doing what I can, to help others. As an Education major, helping children in the community is important to me, and reflected in my volunteer work. I have volunteered in several classrooms over the past two years in partnership with Junior Achievement. Volunteering with Junior Achievement allowed me to teach second grade students about the community they live in, the differences they can make in the community, and empowering students to become successful citizens who make a positive impact in the community. I have also volunteered with SA Reads, tutoring four students in reading in high-poverty schools in San Antonio. When tutoring, I use Science-Based Reading Instruction to improve literacy components. Tutoring students with SA Reads allows me to directly impact the lives of children in the community by tutoring them in reading each week, improving their reading skills, and helping students who would otherwise fall behind, succeed. Other ways in which I have impacted the community in a positive way is by regularly donating platelets at the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center, donating books to children nominated for an angel tree, volunteering at SWISD Special Olympics, Volunteering with Voices for Children, Picking up litter in a neighborhood, volunteering at the Celtic games and music festival cultural event at the kids’ corner, raising awareness of human trafficking

One aim I remember well is “Why do we prefer to see segregation as natural, or unplanned?” as I was the one who helped pick it. You gave me a choice between this question and “do we prefer to see segregation as natural, or unnatural?” (something like that), and I picked the former because I knew it better prompted the way you like to guide your lessons. I didn’t think you wanted a debate on whether segregation is planned or not, but rather a discuss on how calculated the racism in our nation is. When you asked the class about the aim, I remember there being silence. Even I was uncomfortable answering because Americans have a tendency to not want to accept their faults. It’s in our textbooks, our curriculum, and our daily lives. Every single history teacher I’ve ever had remained very neutral to the information they taught (which I don’t blame them for most teachers are expected to not share opinions), but you did not care and I loved that!! I feel like I never had the weight of how cruel and deliberate our history of racism was really drop on me until I was in your class. Americans passed segregation off as a natural process because we knew it was wrong, and did nothing about it, but we did not want to feel bad about ourselves and accept what a backwards society we created. It’s such a simple concept, but for some reason, it didn’t hit me hard until then.

In life dilemmas, do you often feel you’re unable to endure through daily functions? For my family, this happens every day with very few serene moments. During the peaceful times, my mind and body are at ease and I wish that feeling would last forever. Unfortunately, the aroma of tranquility departs while I’m experiencing the motions of my demanding life. In these stressful moments, diligent quotes such as “This, too, shall pass” and “Everything happens for a reason” help accomplish my daily responsibilities. In the past few years, these encouraging words provided me the confidence to overcome obstacles with my family, anxiety, and depression. However, sometimes my depression consumes my entire body and I feel lifeless and numb. These feelings don’t allow me to relax after stressful times and it becomes difficult to fight the negative thoughts.

Practicums are a time to put into practice what we as pre-service teachers have learnt in theory. This experience can be challenging and rewarding all at the same time as it makes a pre-service teacher face both their strengths and challenges as an individual and an educator. Lesson planning can be time-consuming during the hours when one is not teaching but makes the teaching time run more smoothly. There are standards that graduate teachers need to adhere to and relationships with mentors, children, families and colleagues to establish all in such a short time.