Reflection Paper

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.

Throughout the course of this semester, I have continuously grown as a writer. Prior to taking this course, I had little experience or knowledge when it came to writing. I used to struggle with forming my thoughts into writing, let alone a paper. I was never confident with what I wrote. My writing had no greater purpose other than the assignment. My writing process included: writing my paper, proofreading it, and turning it in. Once the paper left my hands, it also left my mind. Throughout this course we worked with others, visited the writing lab, wrote critiques, and we were able to revise our papers. I believe that all of this is has caused me to grow greatly as a writer.

I have never been an excellent student and perennially struggled with English, Math, and Science growing up. These subjects would cast a pall over my day and school work. Anxiety would well up inside of me which often resulted with me passed out across my desk sleeping through parts of class. When I would return home at day’s end, I rarely completed my homework. When I did try to complete homework, it often ended in tears of frustration or the hurling of a book across the room. Taking this class has helped to quell a portion of that anxiety and frustration. It was a grueling class, seemingly impossible at times, but taking this class has given me the confidence to know that not only can I finish the class if I work hard but can also excel! Writing is something that I will exercise throughout my college curriculum and my life. It will help to convey my ideas to the instructor, peers, bosses, and co-workers. In my college curriculum, it will also show my instructors that I’m learning the information provided and how to apply that knowledge appropriately. It will allow me to complete assignments, discussions, and reports, and I will also apply writing in basic communication when necessary.

Reflecting back from the beginning of the semester, I can honestly say that I believed that I was already a really good writer. However, I have struggled with the thought of writing. Ever since I was little, I dreaded the thought of writing essays, but when it came down to get the job done I never struggled and always earned good grades. Up until around half way though this semester I still had this fear. I am thankful that this class has made me overcome the fear and thought of writing essays, even though when it was actually time for me to write them I did just fine. Throughout this semester I have mastered and learned the techniques of brainstorming, how to properly construct an outline, the different types of introductions, and much

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.

My father is a proud vintner of the United States Army who dictated twenty five years of his life severing our country. Growing up as a child, and not understand that life was so subjected to changes. I remember asking my father why we have to move from place to place; having to deal with going to new school making new friends all over again, and leaving old ones behind was not a pleasant feeling to me. My father informed me that travel broadens the mind. As me now developing into young adult who enjoys traveling whenever fined to time

When I was in fifth grade, that's when I found out I was going to go to FCMS. I was really excited but yet very nervous. I thought that it would not be easy to make new friends even though I still had my friends from elementary school. When it was the first day of sixth grade, I was so nervous to walk into class and not knowing everyone in my class. I walked in and I sat down to eat my breakfast. It was a really good chicken biscuit and a very enjoyable, cool orange juice.

Since I was 12-years-old, my dad drilled the following three rules into my head: boys are dumb, drugs are bad, and stay out of bars- regarding both jail and alcohol. I did not know it at the time, but I should have abided by my dad’s “rules”. When I started my freshman year of high school, the first rule was incredibly hard to listen to. Though I had never been in a real relationship until the end of my junior year, I went through my fair share of douche bag “flings” up until that point. These flings taught me what not to look for in a man, because each resulted in me feeling really awful about myself. So awful that I did not know how I could go on some days. But, I would not be where I am today without those douche bags. They dropped me onto the path of another soul who was just as lost as I was.

For an organizational analysis of my current context, I decided to select Option A: Adizes: Focus on Organizational Lifecycle. Everything has a lifecycle, from geological formations to people, societies, and civilizations. Of course, organizations, too, go through different stages – they grow, change, and then, they disintegrate. Even though none of this comes as a surprise to anyone, yet some organizations and their leadership may not be ready to embrace the change and still be sustainable and efficient. As Ichak Adizes boldly suggests in his book, "The challenge of leadership on any level – individual, family, organization, and society – is to change continuously and, nevertheless, always remain together" (1999, 9). As organizations go through different stages, each time they are presented with the peculiar challenges. In many cases, new difficulties cannot be resolved with the old methods and attitudes. Without abandoning their old customs, organizations can be at risk to stagnate or even fall apart as they advancing through numerous transitions. The majority of organizations would encounter similar lifecycle stages; however, they would need to develop certain abilities in order to advance forward in the lifecycle.

From Brothers, Cousins, Uncles, Grandparents, and dear friends, I come from a line of servicemen. Whether it is Firemen, Policemen, Marines, Army soldiers, all of these men were impeccably brave. Even though some without combat, I still believe what they did takes an attitude not much people have. While observing them all throughout the years, I noticed how much being a part of their branch means to them. Though they knew, I had no idea why they valued this so much. My brother, 18 now, will leave for the Marines June 26th, this means giving up his whole college life and a small, but important, portion of his life. When he gets back he will no longer be a growing young man. When he finally returns home, he will be the age of around 23-24. And still why do they all do this.

. We felt uncomfortable because we were alone and knew that behind our back people were thinking, “Who are these maniacs that are washing so strangely?” I couldn’t wait to leave the bathroom, so I quickly finished washing and waited for my three other friends to finish. Then the hard part came. All of us girls would have to pray in front of everyone alone. So I called my dad and said “Baba, we need to pray, do you know any safe place for us at the mall?” He told me to pray in the Arcade room because it would be full of people and if anything bad would happen we would be safe with a group of people. In my head, I knew that’s the place all the kids and families would be. I honestly was afraid that something bad would happen and started happing these thoughts: I could go and lie to my friends and say there is no place to pray or to not pray at all. But I knew I had to pray, so I pushed all those sneaky thoughts away and took all my friends to the arcade room. As we entered the arcade room, it was full of kids laughing, screaming, running around and playing with all the games that were as colorful as a rainbow. We decided to go pray in the back because not many people sit there. As we prayed, one kid stared at us for a while. I thought he must have been thinking, “Who are these crazy people bowing to an arcade game?” I couldn’t stand it any longer. We were almost done and I thought nothing bad would happen, little did I know the hate was on its way. We were on the third

I truly believe that each person, experience, and surroundings takes someone to where they are. To me it’s been a wide set journey that has shaped me as a reader and writer. I came to the realization that what someone's background is, isn’t a definition of who they are. But instead, it has shaped them to where they stand. Where somewhere came from doesn’t define where they will end up. That just means each piece you read or write comes from somewhere that had meaning to it. In my life it involves church, my family and my teachers. Each have been a significant role in the process of getting to where I am now.

I sat on a short bus with 10 other kids I barely knew, tired, hungry, and dreading the next week. Shivering in the cool April morning air, I wished I was anywhere else in the world. The beach with my friends for spring break sounded nice or somewhere else warm where my alarm would not wake me up at six every morning. Yet with every mile marker we passed, the more the unsettled feeling in the pit of my gut began to dissipate. Eight hours and a very small dinner later found me unrolling a sleeping bag on a tile floor, grateful simply to sleep. As I closed my eyes that night, I asked God for two things — for the energy to get through the week and for this mission trip to be worth it.

Martha Graham, an American dancer, once said, “Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.” As a child grows up, they realize the copious amount of possibilities and directions they are being led. Many children choose sports, others choose to enjoy reading, and some choose to explore the world of science. At a young age, I decided to follow the direction of dancing. During my prolonged dance career, I had a numerous amount of teachers, but only two, in particular, stand out to me today. In eighth grade, I was in a class taught by Teacher A. Today, I am in a class taught by Teacher B. Teacher A and Teacher B are very similar, yet completely different. From these two people, I learned how important it is to exemplify good traits of character. While Teacher A was not very keen on being an example of a person with character, Teacher B was an accurate representation of a person with quality traits. I was able to learn about being respectful, responsible, trustworthy, fair, and caring from both Teacher A and Teacher B.

In my entire life, I have never learned so many new things and opened up my perspective on the world as I know it. Being able to watch a story unravel within a culture unknown to me was inspiring and created an uprising of ideas inside my head. Everything from the Lakota characteristics to the love shared between two cultures with very different views. It caused me to think about aspects of my life in a brand new way. This caused the writing experiences to be much simpler when putting them on a page. Thinking in new ways caused me to write in new ways, which helped my growth as a writer more than I thought it would. On the other hand, this semester had its fair share of bad experiences as well. My least successful experience of the semester was the eight page paper written on mental health in America. This paper was meant to exude understanding and compassion while still being informational. However, after reading it a few more times, it sounded quite boring and very emotionless. Despite the use of a personal interview, the paper was merely informational. I wanted my voice to stand up for those people who struggle with mental illness. I wanted it to be different from just a research paper. I wanted the reader to know me through my empathy. Nonetheless, it was none of those things and if I could go back and change the tone of the essay, I would