Reflection Essay : What I Have Learned In The Class

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,

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.

Putting all the parts of writing together is what makes a good piece of writing. Over the semester, my realization of what I was doing wrong paired with the different formatting strategies and the desire to become a better writer has helped me to become better overall. I believe that practice makes perfect, and while I have not perfected my writing or even come close yet, I believe that I have gotten closer to being a proficient writer. I believe that this class has helped me to get closer to becoming a proficient writer, and will help me in my future classes and

I also think that this class will really benefit my future in furthering my education into college because I now know how to write a proper paper and put my heart into it not just write some meaningless words on a page. I feel overall the thing that benefited me most was getting to work hands on and actually writing papers.

I learned a lot about writing and reading from this course, writing became more easy, even my fear of writing essays has been diminished. I learned to be a critical reader to write better. I started to read more and look at different topic, although not much as I wish, but still it enhanced my writing. I now take notes more often than before. I no longer judge a writing by my emotions instead by what it presents of ideas and facts, I keep in my mind that it just reflects the author’s ideas and opinions not necessary the truth, and that my reflection and response of a writing may be the same or differ from others. Using a double journal became the better tool to capture all my thoughts with the ideas of

Writing is a very important part of everyday life whether it be at your job or taking college courses. Haven taken this class, I have learned where my writing is “slacking.” I have definitely learned what I should work on the improve my writing to help. Small grammatical errors are definitely one thing I struggle with and learned to improve. Research papers have always been a challenge for me. I have never done well with them but this class has helped so much with better understanding how they’re done. I also learned some new things that I have never heard of before in the writing world. I have taken so much from this class that I can use to greater my writing in future situations. Studying Law is definitely a major that will require further

One way in which I have put some of the material I have learned from this class into action is by the way I have advised my coworkers to deal with certain issues. As well as by sharing some of the federal employment laws that have been passed throughout the years. I would have not done this if it was not because of the material that I learned from the textbook, discussions, and online class lectures. My employer outsources our HR to another company so we do not really have anyone to guide us when it comes to HR issues. Most of the times they come to me concerning any HR questions. Before this class, I had basic knowledge of the employment laws and was not too confident in answering most questions. Now, I know these laws more in depth and can explain what each is, what it covers, etc.

What did you learn this semester? The golden question from all friends and family members when you come home for breaks. One would think that since my first language is English, writing papers would be easy. It should be, but it is not. I have learned that my writing was not as good as I thought it was. I have learned that throwing a paper together last minute does not work as good in college as it did in high school. I realized early on in the semester that I have trouble analyzing pieces of writing, I can give a summary all day, but analysis is not a strong suit of mine. Sometimes teachers believe that we automatically know how to write, we are not born with reading skills. It would be hard to believe if someone said that they learned nothing from English 111. From English 111 I learned that summarizing is not the same as synthesizing. I also learned that I needed to strengthen my critical reading, thinking, and composing skills. I also gained a better use and understanding of rhetoric knowledge such as audience, purpose and evidence. In conclusion English 111 taught me to be more aware of my conventions in writing. I believe that I have gained knowledge in critical thinking, rhetoric information, and conventions from this semester that have strengthened my writing and I can provide examples to back the clause.

I have discovered some interesting things I have noticed in myself before taking this course. For example, my learning style I have noticed is the visual learning style.

When it came to picking classes, for the most part I just looked to see what goal areas I needed to cover for my generals and found a class under the goal areas that sounded, somewhat interesting to me. After narrowing it down to a few classes under each goal area this class, for me in particular sounded not only the most interesting but, it sounded like a good class to take for my future occupation of wanting to become a Social Worker.

During my time at Iowa State, I have not had very many classes that I have been able to say helped me develop as a person. I learn a lot from my classes and am able to use what I have learned – but very few classes actually change who I am. Because of this class, I have learned about racism and bias in the history of education and I am able to recognize that I did not incorporate diversity into my life prior to this class. It is not something that often crossed my mind because it has never been something I had to worry about as someone who is Caucasian. This class brought to my attention the issues that still surround race. It is especially apparent how it affects students who are simply trying to get an education. This class inspires me to learn more about diversity and what I can do to be an ally as well as what I can do in my future classroom.

This class has taught me many skills that I will use in my future classes. In this communication and information literacy class I have learned about the writing process, citations, peer reviewed articles and more. When researching I should look for more reliable sources and to make sure the resources does not fake information. However, with all of this being said I still have a lot to learn especially when I am to write my essays.

Taking a look back at the beginning of the semester, I can see how much I’ve learned over the last three months. This course helped me grow not only as a student, but also as a person. It taught me the importance of wanting to learn, to study and to always do my best.

Without a doubt the lessons and exercises on time management were the most meaningful to me. They brought insight into why I seemed to be constantly working yet still never really got anything I wanted to accomplish throughout the day finished. I realized the majority of the activities I had been spending the most time on didn’t reflect my values of hard work and self discipline and long term academic goals to be successful in college. This motivated to completely change the way I managed my time by effectively striking a balance between my maintenance, committed, and free time.

I went to Ning’s informational speech section. The classroom is located room 209 at Williams Building (WMS). It took me a while to find this building because I seldom go to the area around Westcott Fountain. Williams is large compound building that served as lecture halls and classrooms for undergraduate’s general education courses. Room 209 is where the public speech class took place. It is a middle-size classroom in the corner and next to a lounge area. I saw some of the students rehearsal their informative speech at the lounge when I arrived early and wait for Ning to come. Ning’s class has 15 students with varying major background. On the day I visited, most of the students came to class on time. Three students arrived about 5 minutes late, and Ning said she would mark them as “late.” Ning told me that too many “late” marks would negatively affect the student’s participation final grade.