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,

Coming into Drexel this year, a necessity, I learned was to have a clear understanding of the mechanics for literature composition. I learned that it would mature my writing to a higher level of thinking. This is seen as past experiences in my writing through high school English teacher feedback indicated my writing to be full of flaws. I often would receive feedback on my writing being awkwardly worded or lacking fluidity. The one valuable skill I learned from English 101,102 and 103 was the idea that exposure to different readings, formulas and informal writings give practice, for me to find my own voice in writing.

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.

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.

Throughout my life, there have been many failed attempts at persuasion due to unsuccessful rhetoric. One of these moments occurred during an interview for the acceptance into a CNA class I was interested in. I was being interviewed by the coordinator of the class who was asking me questions about previous experiences. There were questions asking about times I had worked with a team, times I made mistakes during a jobs, how coworkers would describe me, things I did to make others feel comfortable, and much more. The answers to these questions were used as a way to persuade the interviewer into accepting me into the class. In order to make a successful argument, it would have been useful to know the values of this audience. Values of the interviewer and of the class included having some patient care experience, learning from past experiences, being able to showcase feelings of comfort and kindness, and being able to begin working as soon as the class was complete. Although I had these values in mind, I was unable to express them in a persuading way. The appeal I relied on for this interview was logos, which did not benefit me in the end. I answered the interviewer’s questions with a list of all the things I have done and not how these things have changed me. This led to me not being accepted into the class, showcasing my failed attempt at persuasion.

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.

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.

Every person on this earth has a past that shapes them and makes them into a unique individual. I am a 19-year-old student who has a life that may seem to have little flaws from the view of an outsider, but in all honesty been a journey of difficult ups and downs. I have found that many of the readings we are required to do in university will not personally touch us or make us reflect deeply on our own lives. This certainly was not the cas e when I read the personal essay titled Ghosts and Voices: Writing from Obsession by Sarah Cisneros’, because I found that I connected on a deeply personal level to three principal aspects of this piece of writing. First of all, I was also ostracised as a younger child, but in a school setting not at home. In those difficult years when I felt like I had no one, I escaped into the worlds created in books and through trying to write my own stories. Secondly, like Cisneros’, I found myself deeply connecting with some of the books I was reading and in them found the girl that I wanted to become. Lastly, this entire piece was how Cisneros’ discovered her voice as a writer. She found that the best way was to write what you know best, basically using your own experiences to draw your readers/audience in, which is also something I am well versed in not only as a writer but also a performing musician. I truly connected with this piece by Cisneros and was able to find many key parallels between our personal lives that really struck a chord with me.

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.

Though there was an impressive amount of points and ideas which I will touch on in a few sentences which I appreciated from JD Vance's lecture, what made me willing to listen, swallow and immerse myself in what he was saying was the fact that he pointed out that while there are going to be differences in culture, in opinion, in almost anything there can be differences in… what’s important, what’s an essential part of trying to fix America and restore people’s hope in the American dream is to come at problems and dilemmas from the other side, with a new perspective.

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.

1. Tell us about a skill or concept related to your anticipated area of study, that you found challenging and rewarding to learn. ( 350 words for 1 + 2 together)

As I woke up this morning in the middle of my college career, I was faced with the simple choice of what to eat for breakfast. Seems like an easy enough task, but it took me fifteen minutes. At this same point in my life I am faced with the decision of quitting my job now or waiting until I start my new one in March. Not as easy of a task. The choices that I make can be right or wrong, but either way I will learn from them. If I make the right decision, good for me and my life can go on smoothly. If I make the wrong decision, then I will struggle to fix my mistake and learn from it in the process. People are faced with choices throughout life. Sometimes these choices can be as simple as left or right, while others are much more

Happiness, enjoyment, ecstasy, these sense of feeling people always talk about, which lingering around my ears ever since I was a little kid, gets me tired from even giving a try to dig in and to truly understand what it means to be happy, to enjoy, and live in ecstasy. But there is one moment, the moment which crumbles my thought, has impacted me deeply that makes me wonder: Why do people wish for happiness, isn’t happiness expressed through our laughters and on our smiling face? If not, then what is that authentic and permanent happiness we can get? This all starts from the last parent meeting at the end of my elementary school life, which influences my attitude, my personality, and my plans for the future that is close at hand.

In life, there are a lot of events that can certify one’s challenges. People pass through a lot either to make it in life or to achieve a certain target. Despite this, the only thing that can stand out of this hustle is happiness. This is a feeling that has no limits in one’s life. It’s not negotiable not purchasable. The only thing that an individual can ascertain to is self-worthy and this element generates automatically.