Reflection Papers

When I first decided to expand my education, it had been so long since I had been to school, and I was very hesitant. I talked at length about my decision with my husband and with his encouragement, decided to enroll but still was not quite sure which degree program to enroll in. I knew that this was something that I had always wanted to do since I obtained my Associates Degree in Nursing, but I did not have the courage, nor did I want to give up the time with my family and children. I second guessed my abilities and my knowledge because it had been so long since I had been in college. Now that my children are about to graduate high school and

Before this class, I was terrified of writing papers. In high school we did not write that much and when we did, we were expected to know how to do it. My teachers never went into as much depth and detail as we did in this class. Writing in general was one of my biggest challenges coming into this class. In class we had to write reflections about ourselves and our week in class. I would always struggle with these because I would never know what to write about or how to start it. However, I got more comfortable with formal writing. I felt more comfortable with these because it was like following a formula. With the formal papers, I had directions and with those I was able to find a topic and execute the paper more easily. This reflected in my grades as well because, I would get higher grades on the formal papers and lower grades on my reflections. I am going to demonstrate how I struggled on the reflection journals and did not struggle on the formal writing assignments.

Prior to taking this class, I would always just complete the number of drafts that my teachers would request. I would simply make the small grammatical edit and not worry too much about the argument or how my prose sounded. Tons of useless filler sentences and unnecessary words filled my papers. That said, no one is ever going to make a perfect paper because writing is not about being perfect. It is an ongoing quest for persistent development of your work and this was crucial for me to realize. I would always assume that my work did not need numerous edits or copious amounts of revision. Looking back, I am not sure if this was because I secretly feared having to correct myself so I deliberately ignored digging through all of the flaws, or that I believed my writing quality would be just sufficient to reach my desired grade. I think the more realistic answer is the former. This semester has encouraged me to break down the stigma around needing to write a perfect paper. It is not happening. Once I came to this conclusion, my reservations about truly analyzing my papers melted away slowly. This testament to the continual process that is writing, though initially tough to deal with, will surely make my writing better and more

Also, I was in the Accelerated English II class, and the teacher had a higher standard for the students. The class was one of my less desirable ones. I had a first year teacher, and she didn’t exactly have everything together. When I wrote papers, I made sure to write to the best of my ability. I had a research paper at the end of the semester. If I remember correctly, my paper was on cyberbullying. I am very against bullying in any form, so I chose to write on that topic. Throughout writing this paper, I expressed myself and my thoughts on the subject. I made an A on this assignment and was pretty proud of

I use more thought-out and intellectual words and sentence phrasing than I ever have before. I never felt the work to be too stressful as one may assume college would be. The essays were not too arduous. The entire writing part of the class was pretty easy due to the sources provided to us and the information that can gathered from other areas. For me, the only part that can sometimes be difficult is the technological side but it is very simple to submit your work. If you are already proficient with technology, you will have no issues. The technological skills you gain in this class will be extremely helpful in other classes beyond this one. With the advances in technology we experience every day, it is constantly becoming more prevalent in school work. You need to know more about technology than just writing papers. You also need to learn different types of research that is available online and also different types of formatting and writing styles certain teachers may require. If technology keeps advancing at the rate it is currently, it will be an even bigger asset to you in your future workplace than in college. The better you become now and over the next few years, the more prepared you will be when pushed out into the real world. My advice would be to make sure you stay on top of your work. If there is a project or paper due on Thursday

In middle school, we hardly ever wrote, if ever. Then in high school the only papers we really wrote were in 12th grade. Every other paper was small and could be written out in half an hour. On every paper I wrote I got a high grade, but with this high grade, I didn’t get any feedback. I started just to assume everything I wrote was good, and I became complacent. When it came to write our big senior exit paper junior year, I made an 80. The main reason was due to the fact that my paper “uses immature writing style that includes weak word choice, limited sentence variety, vague and inconsistent voice, and marginal coherence.” I felt crushed. I was angry at my teacher who supposedly proofread my draft and did not provide one ounce of feedback on how the draft was. Our senior papers were graded by other teachers and our names were not on it to prevent bias. Who ever graded my paper either had a different idea of where 12th graders should be at when it comes to writing than my teacher, or my own teacher slacked off and didn’t read my paper at all.

All over the world, there are more and more environmental catastrophes occurring and we are beginning to see the repercussions of our treatment of the planet. Even though there does appear to be some action being taken to reduce the amount of risks, we still continue to follow our traditional ways in a lot of aspects. Something that I have personally noticed however is that certain communities end up facing the worst of the repercussions when something goes wrong. It’s no secret that people in the United States are persecuted based on their racial background, but I never really thought about how environmental issues played a part in this. My main goal is to look into why people seem to not care about the impact environmental issues have on certain groups of people based on their race. I specifically want to look into how the indigenous tribes of America are affected by this since it has become a recurrent theme throughout American history to blatantly ignore the rights of indigenous peoples in America and that statement could not be more true when it comes to environmental issues. I am choosing to make this my area of focus because I have volunteered my services on one of the reservations and have seen first hand some of the hardships these people have had to endure.

Like many Catholics, I was welcomed into the faith shortly after I was born. My mother and father had me baptized at only four months of age. From then on, I was raised in a Catholic household. My faith was prevalent in my school life as well. I attended St. Bernard Catholic School from preschool to eighth grade. There were some parts about being Catholic that I really liked. I enjoyed the church songs we sang at mass and I loved having shorter classes on the days we said the Stations of the Cross. However, I wasn’t fond of being an altar server and I found no joy in having to wake up early on Sundays to go to mass. Though it was a part of my everyday life, Catholicism never really became part of my identity. I never took it upon myself to learn more about the church or strengthen my faith outside of school. I only really participated in Communion and confession and whatnot because it was what I was told and taught to do. Whenever I prayed, I felt more like I was speaking to the ceiling than to God. I hadn’t even considered that I could have my own set of beliefs until high school.

I think we tend to push religion away from the public arena because today’s society and culture has made it taboo to talk about Christ. Even though it has been taken out of context, the separation of church and state is a prime example. While most schools in my area allow prayer there is still the risk that non-Christian students may bully or even shun their fellow classmates for who and what they believe in. We as Christians accept everyone as they are. We may not approve of their lifestyle or life choices, but that is where we are given the opportunity to witness to the secular non-believers. That is when we as Christians see our true calling.

I have struggled spiritually in the sense that I questioned myself. If I am doing right or wrong and if making the right or wrong decision. Life is about choices as God created us and gave us free will. In Galatians 5:13-14 tells us “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command; “Love your neighbor as yourself” Therefore, as I see it, it’s harder to carry with a heavy conscious knowing that I did not act in righteous. Though sometimes I feel that I am acting in righteous. For some it may not be the same. What is right for me might not be right for others. However, as I look back what is right in the God’s eyes, I redirect to his laws. In Romans 13:8-9 “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandments there may be, are summed up in this rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Though Jesus Christ coming to clean our sins, he also came to teach us how to live with righteousness by his simple golden rule. Even though, there are several versions in Bible Galatians 5:14 could not be simpler “Love your neighbor as yourself”

It is  finally the day, final registration at the college. As I sit there waiting to pick my classes, I saw a lady teaching a little girl how to play a game of cards. I always had my mind set on teaching and I knew that picking a grade to teach was going to be a tough decision. As time went on I planned on teaching a high school grade in history, I even had a teacher cadet class where I shadowed a freshman history teacher, helped with the class, and even taught two lessons.

Isn't amazing to think that every word you say and every action you undertake has the potential to change the world? I know that through my education at UConn, I can accomplish that goal.

I never thought that I would be considered a disappointment to my family until the summer of 2017. As a black child you are raised and expected to have a certain religion and abide by it, but as I got older I became open minded and realized that this “idea” of religion is a hoax and is not real. This one belief and idea that I came across changed how my family will view me for ever , as I walked my journey to a non Christian lifestyle.

happen the next day and I was constantly worrying about things I had no control over. I never took to time to really appreciate the day. When my dad first introduced me to the song “Tomorrow” by Unspoken, I didn't get the full message. But as I listened to the song more and more I came to realize how significantly this relates to my life. The song taught me how to focus on today, not worry about the future and let God take care of me.

The other day my Dad and I talked about the Republican primary winner for the Senate seat in Alabama, Roy Moore. I remarked that I found the ten commandments statue Moore placed in the Alabama State Judicial Building, and his refusal to remove it, repulsive. I told him I thought this was a gross violation of the first amendment. The federal judge in 2003 who ordered the statue’s removal agreed with me, arguing that it plainly signaled an endorsement of religion. My Dad decided to play devil’s advocate, though he agrees Moore is heinous and is appalled by how the GOP establishment has accepted him. He asked: don’t most of America’s laws stem from the word of God? Was James Madison saying that American citizens shouldn’t be held to the ten commandments when he called for the prohibition of a national religion? I looked into the case after talking with him. The state of Alabama’s Judiciary stated, "Indeed, we recognize that the acknowledgment of God is very much a vital part of the public and private fabric of our country,” before announcing Moore’s removal from office. The Alabama government agreed with Moore, but removed him because he would not follow a federal order. I asked my Dad why he thinks people believe it would be okay to put the ten commandments in a state building. He responded by telling me about some of his dilemmas as a Christian today. My Dad is searching for morality in 2017 — to him it is absent from our society because of how we have strayed away from