Reflection Paper

As my first semester at Rosemont College is coming to an end soon, I would like to tell you how I got here and how will I stay here. While applying to college Rosemont was not first choice. It was on the bottom of my list. But when I came to visits and listened to what the tour guides were saying I thought Rosemont would be the place for me. The biggest problem, for me was I wanted to stay close to home. I have family at home that I really did not want to be away from, it was my first time being away from home. I know that being away from home would be a change for me, it was a hard decision to make but I made it! The first step of getting to Rosemont was applying into then coming to visit, after my first visit I was still uninterested into the school. The campus was dull and dry and I did not see any students walking around or any of them coming out of class. Shortly after Spring Break of 2017 I had to make a choice. I began to look at the bigger picture of why I wanted to go. While Rosemont was not a place that I wanted to come, but I knew that I would get all my work done and more. I was happy I made the decision I made, because I am staying focus getting all of my work done.

People are not defined by their skin color, they are defined by what is on the inside. Only they can decide who they are, no one else

I learned that most people of African descent won’t usually categorize themselves as African or African American but will rather characterize themselves as another nationality based on the area they are born or the nationality that they are most comfortable being assimilated to. For example in the movie there was a black man who closely related himself to being hispanic on the basis that he also speaks spanish. Another example, a White man who was born and who lived in Africa for a short time, then moved to the United States considers himself to be an African american, which makes sense considering he was born on the continent of Africa, and most closely relates to the area in which he was born.

By what people typically think and classify others as, I would be seen as white. Obviously, this is my racial identity and not my ethnicity. If someone was to ask me what my ethnicity is, I could not give a simple answer. Through generations, my ethnicity is rooted in several different cultures, specifically Irish, Scottish, English, German, and Jewish. Out of the five, I most strongly identify with my German heritage. Without asking me, though, some people would never know from which countries my ancestors came to the United States.

I am proud to be a bisexual African American female with a passion for technology. Yet my journey has not been easy. For my mother, my sexuality was difficult to understand. Due to my strict Jamaican background, she not only misunderstood, but she fought with me. Uncovering my bisexuality was read as a war cry. This led her to try everything in her power to stop or revert this from happening. At one point, not even girls were allowed to sleep over. Her behavior felt dehumanizing and these feelings still resonate with me. I have learned that my mother's acceptance is something I will never have, whole-heartedly, due to her unchanged beliefs.

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.

Since the beginning of the semester, my writing has changed and evolved to accommodate and sustain longer essays. With longer essays, there is more room for in-depth analysis. Further analyzing a topic has led me to findings that I did not know existed. As I continue to write, I uncover addition and superior methods to approach my writing to the benefit of me and therefore, my audience. Throughout the semester, I have incorporated techniques to further my narrative throughout my writing.

I am a Michigan State University transferred sophomore student at WCCCD majoring in Pre-Nursing. I still have my whole life to go. I am 19 years old so, I have a lot to live and go through in life. I am through the adolescent age of becoming a young adult into an official adult.

First I would like to mention that I enjoyed reading this Chapter as it hit home for me because the teachers from Loyola Marymount University believe in building family and community strengths and I fit that mold. Even though demonstrating passion and empathy is mostly frowned upon by many in our institutions due to concentrating on teaching to the test. If you provide your students with a safe learning environment, my experiences have shown that they are more apt to flourish. As a result, I provide this type of atmosphere in my classroom. For example, one of the teachers interviewed, Leticia Ornelas, had “Lotion Day” Nieto (2013). I have shared my lotion with students as well. Some of them fall under the English as a Second Language (ESL) programs. And like she mentions, it provides them with a safe, caring, and passionate learning environment because you build that rapport. Building teacher to student relationships is essential to student outcomes.

When I was four years old, in the dining room of the house in Geneva my family was renting, I unleashed one of my historic temper tantrums. “Mom, no one talks in your dumb language!” I said, vowing to never speak it again. While my mother was upset I was insulting her native tongue, German, she understood my mindset. My experience growing up in different places meant my perception of the world wasn’t reflective of my ethnic background; while we travelled to Germany every year for the holidays, we had never lived there. At this point in my life, I treasure the fact that I grew up in a bilingual household with parents who were passionate about language, but my journey to this point has been a strange one.

Overall, I feel as if our presentation went very well. If there was anything I could change it would be having more class dialogue and it not seem so one sided. I also would have liked to ask more questions considering the class already had prior knowledge, of this content. The questions that I would have like to have asked most are the higher order thinking questions; such as, how and why. An example would be, “Why would you select the more colorful curriculum map over the one already filled out?” The anticipated response would hopefully be: “The colorful curriculum map is broken down into each month in the school year; whereas, the filled in map only has two months.” When creating a curriculum map is should be done for the entire school year and not just a month or so at a time. While assessing all of the feedback that was obtained, it was noted that everyone gave extremely positive with minimal critiques. I enjoyed how the class respected our wishes of giving only constructive feedback. The few suggestions for improvement were for me for to speak up, for Brianna to stand up and maybe move around the room, slow down a little (which was corrected as we presented and noted by some), one person said give more guidance on what to write in the organizer, and one said she wished we would have informed them sooner that not all the puzzle pieces would be complete. When it came to the organizer we did not really focus to much on that because we know everyone learns in a different

I can remember when I was back in 4th grade, I used to attempt to write books or stories. When I was younger, I loved to read with my mom and then would try to write something similar to the book I had previously read. My Mom would help me read books like The Magic Tree House and would simplify and slow everything down for me so I could better understand what was going on and why. Nina Sankovitch, a reader who blogs about what she reads captures my feelings when she talks about how “I discovered new wells of resilience and joy, empathy and beauty” (Sankovitch). When I was younger, I didn’t know how to always capture these emotions, but my goal was always to make a story and try to recreate those feelings. It was a real accomplishment for

This school year had many concepts for me to learn. I had many ups, and some lows. I believe it will be very hard to top this year off. I had three ways I have improved throughout this year. Here they are.

Life is difficult because certain barriers are always presented to us as a test of strength and stability. As a child living in Mexico while having a low family income very much affects the life of any adult child or teenager. For me, the experience was life altering up to the point in which I had to wake up at five o’clock in the morning to begin picking up tin cans on the streets with my father while my mother and sisters were at home. This type of experience in life would make anyone feel a bit depressed by I looked on the bright side and I learned a very important lesson. You don't value what you have until you lose it. When we moved to Mexico we lost everything our house, our furniture, and our lives basically. Eventually, the school

Imagine yourself as a young child, just starting the first year of junior high. You sit on the floor with your siblings in your living room on the weekend, playing Sorry, Monopoly, Clue, or whatever game spikes your interest. You do not have any other cares in the world, as you turn around to see a parent or step-parent leave for work. You tell them bye and that you love them, as they walk out the door, but receive no response. You feel hurt by this and think that you did something wrong, but soon find out that you will never see this parent again. They left your family, for a “better life.” This takes an emotional toll on your whole family, but particularly you. You begin to experience uncontrollable anger, depression, you begin to blame