Reflection Paper

For my service learning project I worked in Mrs. Evelyn Costa's first grade class at Meadowlane Elementary. Meadowlane is located at 4280 W 8th Avenue in Hialeah, Florida and was constructed in 1957. There are one thousand one hundred and seventy seven students enrolled at Meadowlane Elementary school. Meadowlane has fifty three classrooms and fourteen portables and there are one hundred and seventy nine students per grade level. The school was built on nine acres of land. The student population of meadowlane Elementary is comprised of 97% Hispanic, 2% White, and 1% Asian.

“Writing an essay is not difficult! I am actually great at it.” This is a common statement that I would formally say, and even believe. In the past, I had never felt the need to thoroughly revise my essays before. In all my past essays, I would work intensely on my first draft and then just turn the essay in. I never spent too much time re-evaluating my writing decisions before turning it in. This process had worked well for myself in the past, and as a result, each essay I turned it would be an easy “A”. When I signed up for EN100 I figured that it would be just like the other easy English class that I have taken. I assumed that I would work on an essay, turn it in, and then earn an A on it, but this was not the case. When I signed up for EN100 I figured that I could continue my previous essay writing methods, but that was quickly disproven. When I received my first graded essay, I was unsure why I earned anything but an “A” on it. It soon became clear to me that I was going to be required to change the way I formerly wrote my essays and spend more time with correcting them.

Over the course of the semester, there has been numerous amount of areas where I believe I have improved in comparison to high school. What has helped me in my writing is the writing class and the in-class writing workshop. The writing class that is located in the Kremen education building has helped me with my writing greatly because in the writing center the person in charge teach us lenses and we apply those lenses to the writing, draft, or reading that someone brings in. The in-class writing workshop has helped me because other students get to read my writing. This is helpful because I get feedback from many students and they let me know what needs to be fixed. A new tool I have been using is They Say I Say. The book is very helpful because of the information and examples it provides such as the templates. I have been applying the templates into my essays and I have seen a significant difference.

Last summer my cousin and I were enjoying a meal with our families in China. It’s been 7 years since I last saw my cousin. We are about the same age and my favorite memory of her was celebrating her 11th birthday. I remember my uncle and aunt sitting to my right and my grandparents sitting to my left singing happy birthday as she blew out her candles. It has been so long I almost couldn’t recognize her when I arrived at the airport 2 weeks prior. My mom receives a call and leaves the room to pick up her phone. She comes back 10 minutes later in tears. She breaks the news to the family and that our trip would be cut short. She was diagnosed with breast cancer. In the following week, we pack up our bags and head out to the airport. She had to start treatment as soon as possible. I knew I would become the man of the house to take care of my mother and brother, who has autism, while my dad worked in New York.

Ever since I was born, I was raised in a Vietnamese household where my parents and grandparents always communicated to me in only Vietnamese. Before I was four years old, I slowly learned English from watching television and listening American radio stations. In my elementary school, I learned the American alphabet by memorization and repetition of the sounds and signs of the American alphabet. Then teachers started to make students learn new vocabulary and helping students make flashcards with pictures for visual aid. To improve my communication skills in English, my teachers often made the students work in groups, so students can learn from each other and practice their speaking. English is all about memorization and then applying what I learned to other situations. During the summer, I went to extra English classes, and my summer school teachers emphasized the importance of vocabulary and grammar. I learned how to diagram sentences based on their parts of speech and memorized how certain phrases must correspond to a set of rule to satisfy the English grammar. My teachers in high school tested my English skills through public speeches and numerous essays. During high school, I also went to Vietnamese school for four years every Sunday where they emphasized the importance of memorization and repetition. My teachers gave me homework to read, and I had memorize certain poems or short stories. They would test me by making me recite the poem or write down the short stories by

At dinner my father practices math problems with me. I want to be the best in the class, and I know there are people who are better than me at math, so I need to practice. Later than night my mother reads me The Hobbit again so I can fall asleep. I fall in love with the way the story makes pictures in my mind. When my father wakes me up for school the next morning it’s all too soon, and I drag myself out of bed for the warm cup of milk I know is waiting for me. At this time my mother is a practicing Christian, she dresses up for church on Sundays and we go out to brunch with my grandparents after the service. My father is a practicing muslim. I don’t know about the complexities of each religion yet, I just know my father wants me to be muslim, and my mother wants me to be able to choose. I learned at a young age balance was incredibly difficult as I tried to be both christian and muslim to make my parents happy, attending church and the mosque on alternating Sundays. Though I didn’t know it at the time, the desperation for balance showed me that choice is ultimately powerful. But I couldn’t see that yet.

Every school has these four main academic subjects: English, Math, Science, History/Geography. The class I like the most in my eighth grade school year is History. This is because we get to learn about different time periods, different people, different religions, and so much more. We don't just sit in class and read out of a textbook. We get to do fun activities to help us understand more. While we work, we talk to our teacher and have funny and weird conversations. We make fun of each other and have a good laugh. I'm always excited to go to History class.

It is the night of September 4, 2015, a Friday during football season and getting to perform during halftime of my high school football game was a dream come true. As I am performing I feel a tearing that is coming from my right knee, I immediately fall to the ground in pain, but I had to get back up I can’t let my team down I must keep going. I make it through the dance, barely. I know this pain isn’t normal so I decide to go see a doctor with a very exciting name, Doctor Kazzam, I am hoping for news as exciting as his name. He does the major tests and finds out my meniscus is torn almost in half, meaning surgery is needed. Eight months after surgery and countless hours of knee strengthening physical therapy I am still nowhere close to being able to dance again. At this point I am hopeless, I have no motivation to do anything and I’m starting to give up on everything. I try binge watching Netflix, spending even more time with family, and drawing to try to be happy once again, none of this worked. My knee finally reaches the point of clearing in July. First day back at dance things were going great and they continue to go great for four more weeks I was so happy my motivation slowly started coming back and I was becoming myself again all until August 20, 2016. This time instead of a tearing feeling I feel a pop, and a loud pop as I fall to the ground the girls around me look around to see what that popping noise was. I decide to try a new doctor and this time I pick an

I grew up in Greenville, South Carolina. Having had grown up in the south, I was always around people who are more traditional in viewpoints, especially when surrounding the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual/Transgender, Questioning, and more community. I received my education at a high school where no one hesitated to throw around extremely derogatory terms. Throughout my schooling I had found close friends who had expressed their feelings of not fitting into their biological sex. Every time I heard them talk about their feelings I felt my heart sinking. I knew it was not fair. I found myself constantly feeling their pain. Feeling all their fear, anger, and sadness along with them because I knew that they lived in fear of people finding out who they really were and what their reactions might be. It broke my heart that they were forced into constantly fearing for their safety.

Over the history of this country, many families across the globe have come to the U.S. in hopes of a better life. My family was one of the many that decided to leave our home country and come to the United States. We never realistically imagined coming to America, but when we did, it was a real dream come true. Knowing I was coming to this country as a student was especially exciting for me personally. We were so excited about this new adventure and the opportunities we would have, despite the many challenges that lay ahead. Two of the obstacles I had to overcome, were having to learn a new language, and build new relationships.

To go along with being an athlete, I am a student. To be able to get playing time, you need to have good grades. My parents didn’t just push me to be a good athlete, but to get good grades. I had higher expectations compared to my brother. But that pushed me to keep my grades up and do get an A on assignments and tests. This impacted who I was and what I decided to value. It was important to my parents that I got good grades, but to me it was too because it helped me get into college and it made me feel good about myself. Being a student, just like being an athlete, teaches me to be diligent in the work that I have in front of me. It also teaches me time management, and what I need to get done compared to going out with my friends.

Since arriving on campus, I have been asked how I came to Miami several times. Some would say that coming here is destiny, but I disagree. Psalm 139 says that before I was born, “in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them” (NKJV, Psalms 139:16). While there are several main components about which I will write, I keep coming back to the fact that God placed me here.

In school, I used to loathe the icebreakers that involved saying an interesting fact about oneself. I would fumble around and iterate some unoriginal sentiment about my favorite color or animal and leave without actually providing substance about myself. This all changed after I lost the vision in my right eye and could tell people about the three-inch needle that pierces my eye multiple times every year. I thoroughly enjoy watching people squirm as I chuckle and explain the process.

A brief overview and background: I went on a mission trip with my church Youth group to a deaf village in Jamaica. While we were there, we built dorm rooms and classrooms for the children living there. The impact that trip had on my life was amazing. It made me realize just how good we have it in the United States of America.When I am hungry or upset and I didn't get the newest trend clothing, I always think back to the children down in Jamaica. They literally have nothing. At the deaf village, all the children are foster kids. Their parents gave them away because they did not want to deal with their disabilities. I have never taken my parents for granted again, because of what we have and the relationships we have in the U.S.are very precious, We are a very blessed nation.

When I picked up the book Make the Impossible Possible by Bill Strickland, I could not help but form a negative opinion about it. I thought, “Great. Here is another book trying to tell me how to generically make my life better.” I looked up at Ms. Purser with a sneer and pessimistic thoughts running through my head. As soon as I began reading the first chapter, though, my opinion turned on its head. This was proving to be a book written from a real person’s perspective. Instead of cliché instructions on how to improve my life, I was reading the story of a man who came up in the ghetto, but changed his mentality and began leading a