Reflection Paper

Throughout the course of the semester, the portfolio I have created in W233 has helped me gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of the writing process. Coming into the class, I felt confident in my abilities to write a good research paper. However, looking back on my former self, I now realize that there is much more to writing well. It is not all about using fancy, grandiloquent vocabulary and reading over drafts and revising and editing and following a prompt like a robot; writing truly becomes proficient when taking the road less traveled through extensively collecting research, refining the topic of the paper, analyzing and summarizing research, and showing a commitment to multiple drafts to refine a writing. I came a long way when I went through this advanced writing process over the semester. I started out with little knowledge of how to mediate an argument effectively and I went through two research ideas before I finally decided on a topic that I really felt I could discuss. When finally deciding on negotiating between advocates of GMOs and advocates of organic agriculture, I felt that it would be a pretty simple argument to mediate, but there ended up being much more to it than I expected. Moving from pre-writing stages and the abstract to the rhetorical analyses to the annotated bibliography and finally to the negotiation paper, I learned a lot in each phase about my topic and about the writing process.

Wasted Youth and constant void. Growing up and entering adulthood can be one of the scariest things to anticipate. Adults tell us to enjoy our adolescence for as long as we can, because it won’t last forever. Maturity has its pros like legally being able to drink, ability to drive etc. yet it holds the other aspects like, liability. Adulthood can be an extremely scary thing to anticipate as we will suddenly be exposed to responsibility. Some youth accept this fact while others try to run.

I like to think I’m the artsy type, but I know I fit into that category in a more realistic and applicable sense of the word. I’m messy, scatterbrained, horrifically unorganized, and always covered in paint. With these characteristics comes an interesting approach to my writing process: sporadic motivation followed by procrastination, and finally deadline panic. Throughout this collection of essays, drafts, and musings, my mechanisms of writing have been refined through the action of drafting, self revision, and peer revision. Historically, when I write papers, I sit and reflect for days at a time on the essay, or rather how late I can put off actually writing said essay. Drafting has, however, forced me to put my thoughts to paper earlier than the night before the due date. It slows my deadline motivated, caffeine fueled mind enough to actually comprehend and plan out what I write as I write it. Never before have I embraced the slow, laborious mechanisms of drafting. Identity becomes the string that connects each work within this portfolio, either pertaining to the thesis of the individual essays or expressing itself poetically.

I’m a highly academically driven student and have several, quite lofty, goals for my time here at Texas A&M. I want to maintain a 4.0 GPA, or at least a minimum of a 3.5 in order to maintain my Cornerstone Honors status. My dream, and biggest goal, is to intern for a congressperson in Washington, D.C., and I also want to study abroad, hopefully in England.

It was the start of another day and I was dreading getting out of my mom’s car and walking into my school. I would much rather be at home playing video games than being forced to do mundane work. For the majority of my life, I attended public schools. It wasn’t rare for me to fail a test or even a whole class. It was because of these failures that I would get even more demotivated and threw away the idea of working hard or completing quality work altogether.

Reviewing the idea of good fortune in one's life caused me to realize a lot about how I want to live my life, and how I should impact others by living my life to its fullest potential. Its opened me up more to the role of religion in my own life, causing me to realize what I need to work on and how I need to not change. The vast majority of my life lies in front of me and right here, right now, is where I need to focus and be present because I have been put on this earth for a reason, but I am yet to figure out what that reason is. This is not something that worries me, but rather inspires me because I will always know that I mean something and this sheds light into the darkest of times. These three questions of who God is, why does one receive good fortune, and what really is religion that have lingered about me for the vast majority of life have finally begun to resonate with me. I do not fully understand what the role of religion in my life is right now, but I feel that I do not need to understand what it is right now because I can already see myself growing to make religion more prominent in my life. Now it is one thing to say that I am beginning to understand how these questions are being evident in my life, but it is another thing to understand how it is that I will change myself to become the fullest person that I can be. Because in my life I have been one to say something, and more often than not have followed through with my word. So this

In the first semester of Mr. McGee’s class was a very educational one. For the first time in my entire life I actually finished an entire textbook! The junior english B class had plethora of really amazing stories and poems. However, there was only a handful of stories and poems that really stood out for me. These stories and poems had a deeper meaning to them then the rest. Being in Mr. McGee’s class really helped me dive into a better understanding of even the most simple lines. I believe that this has also had an impact on the type of music I listen to as well. For the longest time, The sound and beat of a song was what made me fond of it. However, I am more drawn to songs with meanings now. I also believe that in benefited my reading techniques. The problem that I had with standardized testing for reading was not being able to focus on stories that had bored me. There were some stories that still made me feel this way, but at least now I can read through it and understand the basics of the text. The following paragraphs give a very opinionated reason as to why these poems and stories i choose were some of the best texts that we read in this semester.

Since I took U.S history and AP Government in high school, I was not completely blind to issues regarding the government prior to taking this course. I knew how the government worked in terms of the separations of powers, the bureaucracy, civil liberties and civil rights, and the different branches of it. Therefore, I did understand the function and the purpose of the government, however, I did not understand them all too well to believe that my trust in the government was high. I see the bad in the good, and the good in the bad, therefore, I was skeptical of the government when it came to certain issues. Furthermore, I like to see all sides of an issue before I take a sand on it, this causes me to be confused as to where I stand in regards to my political thoughts and attitudes. Overall, however, I consider myself to be very liberal when it comes to politics and policy making, especially in regard to women’s rights, immigration, education, global warming and the environment, as well as health care. However, I am still confused of where I stand on certain issues, especially regarding issues such as affirmative action. In essence, I am still figuring out what my political thoughts and attitudes are, but the beliefs I currently have are highly due to my political socialization and hopefully with the information I learned in this course I can continue to better understand certain issues and how I identify with them.

There are so many things I can say about this class and why I enjoyed taking it very much. I would like to talk about how my experience in this class made me relate to history but I can only say so much in this paper, but here I will name a few. First thing I would like to say that I enjoyed our group presentations very much, from all of the groups. Second I would like to say that my favorite topic in this class was about WW2 and the battles and the history why exactly this war had started in the first place and how it ended. Also I want to talk about how the war opened windows of opportunity for women.

I learned some pretty strange things in my middle school sex education class. However, I’d consider myself lucky! My class was the only one to have a speaker come in to talk to us. He taught about one thing, and one thing only:

While growing up in a small town with nearly 3,500 people and exactly two red lights, I heard a lot of comments made by students that degraded where we lived. Any comments from “our schools scummy and doesn’t teach us anything” to “there is nothing to do around here”, were statements I heard daily. I cannot tell you how wrong they were. Growing up in such a small school with a graduating class of 93 helped me build a strong relationship with nearly every teacher, and also shaped me into the person I am proud I’ve become and becoming. I was not exposed to nearly as many terrible events that large scaled schools are, and I also knew every single person in my class’s name. Although knowing everything about everyone wasn’t always positive, it definitely helped me learn a lot. It taught me you will absolutely NOT get along with everybody in life, but it is crucial to learn to find a positive in everyone. If you don’t, you will not be as successful as you could be. The same people that put down my beautiful and “boring” town are the same ones that didn’t remember to look for a positive in it. The positive’s being, it made us who we are. I definitely agree that it’s boring, but there is something beautiful about the simplicity features in life.

On my last day with class 3-213, I had the opportunity to conduct an interdisciplinary lesson using nonfiction articles. The articles I used derived from Nonfiction News: African Animal Edition by Cecelia Margo. Accordingly, the students have been studying nonfiction for several weeks and because of this, they had previously learned the various features of this genre. Upon planning for this lesson, I took time to prepare and craft an activity that would promote collaboration and engagement. Thoughtfully, I took into consideration the children that were in the room and adapted my lesson to meet their educational needs. Thus, I decided that I was going to crafted this lesson on the premises of two ideas: (1) tiered-text differentiation and (2) the pairing of advanced and struggling learners. Going into this lesson, I knew that I wanted to ask thoughtful and encouraging questions that would enable students to integrate their prior knowledge and challenge them.

The act of reading, writing, and listening to literature for enjoyment has always astounded me. Humans are the most complex animals on Earth, yet literature is still a novelty to some. It might be because of what we learn in school that turns us off from literature, but I may be different. I found a love for poetry and creative writing during my freshman year in high school. It was important for me to project what I could not say outloud, and that is where I felt unified with literature. When I put pen to paper, I felt like life had stopped and I was in the moment. Life became increasingly hard as I went through school, but each time I came back to writing, I felt as if I was drifting away in myself yet still in control. It was hard for me to find a way to cope with my ever changing life. The act of writing helped me tell my story in ways that I could not express to others due to our social expectations. Storytelling is important, for it provides a nessecary outlet in order to cope with life more easily.

I met with K. Beam before we left on our two- week fall break to discuss working with her for the coaching practicum and what she was interested in working on with her students.

Every student deserves the best chance at getting the highest level of education they can, however, some students need a little extra support that others may not. A student, Axel, who is currently in my classroom has had a hard time keeping his focus and is often avoidant when it comes to his work. It has become clear that his avoidance becomes a distraction to the whole class. His behaviors currently include but are not limited to: rolling around on the floor during rug lessons, yelling across the room, walking around the room talking to friends, sharpening his pencil five or more times throughout the day, asking to go to the bathroom at inappropriate times, spending fifteen to twenty minutes in the