Reflection On The English Class

As the semester comes to a close, it is always interesting to look back and reflect on the events and opportunities my English class has given me throughout my first semester as a whole. At the beginning of this semester it was evident that I was feeling uncomfortable due to the adjustment that I was going through as a student moving to college. It was very difficult expressing myself through my writing since I was nervous about good impressions and my good grade. While this class was one of the most difficult courses that I have taken this far, it has become quite evident to me that I have grown a substantial amount as a writer and as a person; Especially, when it came to explaining my ideas, writing academic essays, and making arguments.

First off, I want to thank you for making this year and my first honors English experience fun for me! Though this year was challenging for me, it has also been extremely knowledgeable. From my freshman year to sophomore year, I can definitely notice the difference in my writing and reading. I can definitely see how much I have grown, and I am sure you could see these improvements too. Last year, I was in regular English and jumping from regular to honors was a huge step for me, which at first, I was not fully comfortable with. But as I got to know this year’s class and of course you, Mrs. Walker, I felt like I belonged here, in an honors English class. Throughout this year, I have learnt and improved at my skills of properly annotating texts, writing a proper claim, analyzing author’s style, and also analyzing rhetorical situations.

Before I enrolled in English 101 my ability to write specific types of papers (argumentative, rhetoric, narrative, etc) were mediocre at best. However, from reading The Norton Field Guide to Writing and They Say, I Say I gained a deeper understanding on how to better argue a point or write a narrative with a clear theme. Moreover, from my time of being in English 101 I have improved tremendously in the given areas: Rhetoric, Technology, Research, and Collaboration.

My overall experience in English 101 has definitely changed the style in which I read and write. This online English 101 course has introduced me to many different types of writing that I did not know even existed. From weekly discussion boards, to the interview college, to the rhetorical analysis and research essay, I have learned how to properly and effectively write with many different tones and attitudes. Not only have I learned how to write with many tones and attitudes but I have also strongly caught onto the concept of how to address multiple audience groups in the most appropriate way possible. After reflecting on all of the concepts I have discovered in English 101 this semester, I have realized that I have not only grown tremendously

As a writer, I am quite sure of myself. I feel that English 101 was a large step in improving and building my skills. Writing is a particular strength of mine, although I struggle when it comes to open-ended prompts. While I can effectively construct an argument, I would consider myself still inexperienced with the writing process. Throughout high school, there were few writing assignments and what I did write was formulaic and lacking substance; giving original ideas or organizing beyond the five paragraph essay is still fresh to me. My teachers would tell us students what to write during a “class discussion” of the literature and afterwards send us to work. Writing outside the basic five-paragraph essay was taboo; each attempt had been met

Throughout my academic carrer, I have had a history of struggling with English classes. I was excited to take English 101 because I believed it would most effectively teach me the basics of successful writing and communication. In high school, I developed mediocre writing skills and struggled with reading comprehension so I knew these topics would pose a problem in any English class I take. Despite the fact that I was in AP Language in high school, I learned very little and did not improve my writing and communication skills as much as I would have liked. In English 101 , I would like to change that and enhance my time management skills, grammar skills, and overall writing ability.

What have I learned in English 102? When I began this class, I had not taken a formal English class in over thirty years. I understood sentence structure and essay writing to a point. To elaborate my understanding was based on story telling rather than research and factual commentary. Of course, rhetorical review and research was foreign to me. I had a loose understanding but had never practiced or been in a position to apply these skills. Or at least that is what I thought. Since beginning this course, I have found it both challenging and enlightening. I feel that my skills have developed over the last few weeks and a greater understanding of what it takes to identify and understand complicated subjects has progressed. Not just that I can read difficult scholarly text, but that I can focus on what they are trying to say, their argument, and then develop my own counter argument in support of or against the authors statements. It is more than just saying I concur or I do not agree with you. It is stating how my point of view differs and supporting my statements logically and directly with facts, not just conjecture. Within the following paragraphs I will discuss, in more detail, the specific areas where I feel I have matured and how I intend to apply this new-found knowledge to my future writing as well as reading materials to assess their value.

Throughout this semester in English 101, I have made a significant improvement on multiple things, including how to be an exceptional writer and thinker. English has always been one of my most favored subjects to study because to me it instructs students how to be intelligent, how to become a more creative and critical thinker, and be able to develop ethical values and imagination. You can express yourself more efficiently in English than you can in any other subject. This class has truly made me a more confident writer and helped me express myself in different ways through the different types of papers I wrote. By writing different types of papers I have improved multiple areas of my writing. I have grown as a student in diverse areas such

Proficient writing is an essential skill in all aspects of academic and professional achievement. English 101, Introduction to Composition and Rhetoric, provided the framework to good writing, teaching me composition and rhetoric fundamentals, polishing up my grammar and style, and expressing a clear message. English 102, Composition, Rhetoric, and Research, continued to build on the skills I learned in English 101, focusing on the subject matter research process and employing various rhetorical and literary devices to better express a clear message to the reader. The course also improved my critical thinking capacity, allowing me to culturally evaluate my target audience, present logically flowing arguments using appropriate language and structure, and critically reviewing my writing projects for content and expression. Every writer inherently knows there’s always room to improve and I hold fast to this mindset in all academic, professional, and personal writing projects. English 102 has both challenged and inspired me to grow into a much better writer than before I began the class, providing the necessary skills to be not just a good writer, but a great writer.

English has always scared me a little because I have never been super confident in my writing abilities, however this year I am looking optimistic. By the end of this english course, my goal is to be more confident in my writing abilities. Also, I hope to not only become a better reader, but to comprehend what read. Sometimes when I read, I will not fully grasp what the author is trying to say, or I will not understand what the moral of the story is, so I would love to work on comprehension skills this year. Another area that needs improvement is knowing where to put commas. I realize that commas are placed to continue a sentence without having it turn into a run on, however I will usually place commas in the wrong spot, or I will not add them

Before I stepped foot into my English 1303 class, I had assumed that it would’ve been a class that I was not fond off. Within high school, English was never one of my strong points; so when college started I did not really know what to expect. Most of the time during high school, I would never really give much thought into how my essays were written, I just wrote them to get it over with. Within high school English classes, I had never experienced any sort of connection with the pieces that I had to write about. The topics that we reviewed were of no interest to me. Being introduced to the same environment had me very much afraid of doing the same process all over again, but now I currently enjoy both the writing and the class. So far this

I entered this class with a general idea of what was going to be expected of me and what I was going to have to accomplish in order to be successful, and I credit the extent of my preparation for this course to the extensive instruction and critiques provided for me by my high school teachers. By them I was taught the fundamentals of composition which allowed me the time and energy to more deeply understand the intricacies of good writing which I would be taught in college. Although I learned many new concepts in English 101, I feel as though I had a stable foundation to build on and enhance with more refined skills.

This first semester at the University of Akron has flown by. I learned many new writing concepts that helped me become a better writer. English composition was a required class that I had to take in order to get my degree. Although this class was required I still wanted to take this class to become more knowledgeable about writing. Coming into English Composition I was worried about all of the papers and the workload that I would have to complete. I knew that I was going to have to write a lot more than I previously had in highschool, but I was unsure of just how much. The works that I decided to include in my portfolio comprise of my Literacy Narrative, Image Analysis Paper, and essay titled Mayas Hardships based on Maya’s experiences in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I selected these works because I felt that they are the ones that require the most improvement to them. The papers i've chosen show how far I’ve came In English Composition.

In English class this year, I have experienced new, interesting and useful skills and numerous other things. English 101 was a good class to take first quarter of this year because I gained more skills in writing for other classes that I will be taking. I improved my writing skills as well as my ability to annotate lengthy and challenging pieces of text. This English class helped me gained a better understanding of how I was able to improve skills on citing sources. During this class I got to learn about the types of writing, the writing process, the structures of an argument, audience, Literacy Narratives, Memoirs, and rhetorical situation. I truly appreciate the growth that I have gone through in this class.

Ms. Sullivan is a third grade teacher at an elementary school where English language learners (ELLs) make up approximately 85 percent of the student population. The majority of the third graders she teaches are of Asian, African American, and Hispanic ethnicities and seem to be within the intermediate stages of English language proficiency. In the video lesson, Ms. Sullivan presents a whole group math lesson measuring temperature using a thermometer. In this lesson, Ms. Sullivan utilizes a wide variety of sheltered instructional strategies to improve her ELLs’ language development.