Reflection Paper

During the beginning of the English 101 when we began the writing process: I thought at first that we spent too much time on our essays but I soon realized how important it was spending time on the essays to improve them . The revisions that my teacher and classmates made on my essays were truly helpful for me because it allowed me to better my writing. For every week in the entire course we went over the MLA formatting process, annotating, citing within the essay, and how to make the paper flow better. I had the most troubles in this quarter when I started writing some of my essays for my portfolio because I didn’t have a clue how to start them at first. After a while of brainstorming ideas and seeing examples the teacher

Writing on the other hand is strenuous. Instead of simply changing tone I have to convey the meaning in syntax. This is a major hurdle to overcome. That is where the second point comes into play. The old saying “nobody’s perfect” is difficult to believe even though it's been said numerous times. We all want perfection even though it's impossible. In the engineering field that is a good quality to possess as it creates competitiveness amount peers. In a writing class however, it can be one's demise. From personal experience I can contest that being too self-critical is harmful. I got to the point my senior year of high school where I no longer tried because I felt as if everything I did wasn't good enough. English is not my strong suit, so when we had to write five essays I panicked. I would've been happy with a simple 85 - like I said I know I'm not

When I first started English 101, I saw myself as having a few good strengths and a lot of weaknesses as a writer. Some of my strengths included being able to write a good introduction minus the thesis part. I also saw myself as knowing how to write a good conclusion that summarized what I talked about in my essay and being able to understand a article or essay by knowing what the author was talking about. Some of the improvements I saw in my writing thorough out the semester is learning how to write an essay where I can communicate with the audience with my own personal voice. I also feel I improved on knowing how to properly include quotes and how to find good creditable sources to include in my essay and on how to include both sides of a argument in my paper. Another improvement I found in my papers is learning how to revise them and approach each essay. However, there are some items of writing that I believe I improved on but still needs some work. For example, even though I have learned all about the rhetorical appeals and how to determine them in a essay, I still feel as if I do not know how to properly included them in my essay. I also see myself as improving on knowing how to write a thesis but still need work on

Initially my writing lacked structure and a controlling purpose which caused my ideas to be incoherent and hard for the reader to understand. These difficulties could be attributed to the fact that I am an art student plagued with the disorganization and non-verbal method of an artist’s brain. Being this way, interpreting and conveying my thoughts accurately and eloquently into the assigned writings was fairly tough. However, during the course of English 101 I was able to identify my weaknesses through the aid of writing communities such as peer review sessions and conferences with my professor. With the help from these resources and the writing process I learned to better organize my essays and maintain a controlling purpose in order to help my audience

Throwing back my three years in high school, my writing skill was bad. In English class, when I was a Sophomore, my English teacher used to call me into her office. She told that my essay was full of bad grammars and too vague. As a result, she gave the lowest score in the class. Also even when we wrote the college application, most English teachers told my essays were too vague. Fortunately, after a few revise, it was getting better

My writing style throughout junior year has changed drastically. With each essay my motivation to write better went down. I started to do the bare minimum with each essay. I did not do a rough draft or double check any of my work. My first essay I wanted to do a decent job so I can start the year off with a good start. I wrote very clearly and did what the prompt said. After that essay I did not care so much about what I had to do to get an A again. Yes, this is very irresponsible of me, but as the year went on I lost my drive to do better. I think as a writer I have gotten worse, because I did not write to my full potential.

On September 6, 2017, I were documented for an incident that involved a University Housing policy violation. I was charged with violating the University Housing Alcohol 1.2 policy. With my violation, came consequences. I met with The Residence Conduct Coordinator to discuss my actions and came to the conclusion that I would have to schedule a meeting with The Campus Alcohol and Drug Education Center (CADEC) and with that, a reflection paper.

When I look back at my writing before having any college experience, I can see that I had a lot to work on. I can say that I was never really a big fan of writing anything much less essays. Even when I was younger, I just did not have a great big interest in writing. This was because I felt that I could not elaborate as well as others. I was not use to having to write anything really, but I now feel that I have a better grasp on the steps that I need to take to get my writing on the level that it needs to be.

Over this semester I feel that I’ve not only developed into a better writer but also have grasped a better understanding of the writing process, which is arguably most important; having a solid foundation for my writing technique is the key to writing well. Throughout middle school and high school, I have always been told to use the "five paragraph format" when writing essays, but now that I’m in college, I understand that I have been limiting my creativity and not expressing my opinions and ideas to their fullest extent. To be a good writer I must put time and effort into my topic and fully understand the main idea to write a satisfactory essay. So far, I feel as if I’m doing alright. `When I first begin the writing process I always start by typing out the full story. Personally, I can’t sit down and plan what I’m going to write about; formal drafting makes me feel as if I have writers' block. Over the years I have taken bits and pieces of advice about my writing and incorporated those snippets of guidance and suggestions into what my writing style is today. I don’t think I’m bad writer but I could work on developing more of my essays into “A cakes.”

When I started my first semester of college, I was very worried about writing essays and research papers. I felt like my writing skills lacked greatly compared to other students. I knew a few things of which I could improve on right off the bat, such as my vocabulary skills and organizational skills. To say the least I was very nervous about how my writing composition course would be like and did not think it would go very well for me. However, I learned so many techniques that have helped my writing skills grow. It all started with learning how to stay organized, planning what to write in your essay in outline form and sticking to it really helped when writing essays. These techniques helped me become more confident in my essays and allowed writing essays to become a lot easier. The few aspects in which I am strong in while writing essays is my ability to stay organized, focused and be very clear about what I am writing. Nonetheless, there is always room for improvement; a few things that I can think of being grammar and punctuation due to no revising, embedding quotes smoothly, and citing sources correctly.

When I was in middle school is when I did most of my formal writing. We mostly did essays when it came to English class, I-step, tests, and sometimes even in History class. In my younger days I was definitely not confident in my essay writing abilities. I knew how to tell of my story or whatever I was trying to talk about in my essay but, I wasn’t very grammatically correct. I never really had topic sentences, a thesis statement, good punctuation, or anything like that. I just kind of had a beginning, middle, and end. It was very simple and just a short story. My essays weren’t ever very great.

Writing is not just as simple as putting words down on a document or a piece of paper, it is a process. Within this intricate process are steps that involve more than just writing, such as critical thinking, planning, and editing. Using these steps has not only helped me when planning an essay but also when composing one. Throughout this course, I have managed to improve many skills and gain a lot of strengths, but I still possess some weaknesses. Overall, I believe my strengths have definitely outgrown these weaknesses and have led to a better, more high-quality writing process which leads to improved essays.

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.

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.

I feel that I have achieved the majority of my goals from the end of last semester. Looking back at my first semester writing portfolio, the goals that I tried to fulfill for this semester were either improved, or I fully accomplished. My goals were to use better vocabulary in my writing, and to proofread my essays more often, and carefully. Throughout this past semester I tried my best to keep these in mind, and incorporate them in my writing. I believe I have improved my vocabulary since first semester, and I have made sure to reread my essays, and I even had others read my writing to get other opinions. During this semester I have made new goals for myself. I think it is good to always have different goals that you would like to achieve, and once you do, you should continue to make more. My current goal for writing is to