Reflection Papers

Through this Professional Writing course, I have learned how powerful language and written words can be in conveying one’s idea. Due to my language barrier, it is sometimes difficult to understand the prompts entirely, which leads to deviations from the expected answers. Therefore, I have always struggled to compose essays in a coherent manner and meet the assignment requirement. However, this writing course has strengthened my ability to express my knowledge and thoughts on paper coherently and concisely. Strategies like brainstorming and keeping notes before starting a paper, drafting, revising and editing are useful tools for me in writing a more powerful and cohesive paper.

In the past years of my school journey from middle school now to high-school, I have struggled with writing papers. I was not an excellent writer or rather the best writer. I had trouble with expressing my main idea of my paper whenever I was given a topic. Even though my teachers would tell me to brainstorm before I started writing, I still somehow struggled because I was better at letting ideas flow through my head as I write. I was not an expert at developing sentence structure or details as well. Over the course of my life, I have grown in these areas. Given the opportunity to take this online course, it has taught me a lot about writing from expressing my purpose, developing sentence structure, and more. College level writing is

We often are apprehensive to immerse ourselves in a location where we feel we will be the odd one out. No one ever wants to feel that they are be judged or stared at when they are going to a new place, so we tend to avoid those situations. But what people do not realize is that we are creating most of these scenarios up in our heads. That by making ourselves feel uncomfortable or anxious before we even go, sets us up to over analyze our day to day activities to the sport teams we root for.

It can be difficult to believe an individual can remain constantly positive, even while dealing with a family loss; but it is this type of attitude that has brought me to where I am today. While some may see the challenges I faced as “barriers,” I saw them as opportunities to better myself towards my goals. I was always pushing myself as hard as I could with the understanding that knowing everything was not the goal; the real goal was to always become the strongest version of myself at whatever I was doing. Therefore, how I handled my educational and life challenges were the ever evolving characteristics of who I was as an individual and a professional.

People say that I have a hard exterior and that I rarely show my emotions. Well, that is true, but isn’t that applicable for every human being? Seeing someone when they are at their weakest moment is uncomfortable and the last thing they want is your pity. Sure, that might be true, but what they want after is certainly companionship and people to talk to. Keeping feelings pent up is fatally detrimental to the mental health, and I myself have been a recipient of this during my sophomore year of high school. It was only with the help of a close group of friends that I could preserve through my darkest hours.

While looking back at all of the essays I’ve ever written a quote that matches my thoughts is one by C.J. Cherryh stating, “it is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long as you edit brilliantly.” When it comes to writing essays, I always feel like I’m off topic or not fully explaining myself. I am better at going back and looking at the errors in grammar and punctuation than looking for the problem in the content. Looking for errors in my content can be hard because what I am writing will always sound correct to me. If someone else doesn’t read the topic and then check my essay, then my paper would be completely wrong. While there are certain things that can be done differently in my writing, it is easy to see the changes in every essay I write, and in each writing I’ve discovered something different about myself.

When I was young, the last words I would hear at night were “In Jesus’ name, Amen,” as my mother prayed over my twin sister and I, while tucking us in bed. Her words surrounded and comforted me like a warm blanket, even on the darkest of nights. Anytime I would have a nightmare, I would run to her room and she would appease me with prayer and somehow compel me to feel dauntless. I admired my parents tremendously and always sought for their approval, so I never questioned any of the beliefs or opinions they were teaching me as I grew up. However, growing up into the person I am today I have learned that Christianity, or religion itself, is not always black and white, and occasionally you face obstacles that challenge the beliefs and opinions you were raised to withhold.

Many decisions, monumental as well as minuscule, are made throughout a lifetime. Decisions can lead to the luxurious Hollywood Hills or the local state penitentiary. These decisions will mold our ever fleeting lives into legendary masterpieces or into unforgiving regret. With such an abundance of decisions, they are easily taken for granite. That being stated, there are decisions that leave an everlasting mark to never be forgotten.

Before starting this session, I assumed I was well versed in terms, of race, ethnicity, and nationality being that it is a topic I am reminded of nearly every day. However, I may have been partially wrong, I’ll explain. My mother was born in the state of Michoacán, Mexico in the rural town of Arteaga. My father was born in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico in the city of Chihuahua. I have always considered my race to be Mexican and my ethnicity to be Hispanic while my nationality is American. Considering filling out administrative forms, I typically check the block for other when it comes to race and identify by ethnicity. It varies depending on the form, if there’s a block to check for Hispanic usually there’s a blank space where I write in Mexican. If there is only a black space then I will write in Mexican. However, to Mexicans from Mexico, I am not considered Mexican. They will label me as a white Mexican, Mexican American or Chicana. I am undoubtedly proud of my roots as well as being an American. In the world we live today, it’s difficult to neglect the fact that I stand out due to my unique characteristics. That at times I am treated differently. That due to my roots I am told to return to my country. That I shed a tear as I write this because I live with an inner struggle of who I am.

No one is exempt from turmoil during their lives, and I can honestly say that I am thankful for the adversities and encounters which have crossed my path because they have strengthened my character and brought forth certain virtues I might otherwise never have known. There are various personal issues with which I have struggled and I have no doubt as to where their foundations lie.

With the conclusion of my junior year in high school, I was left academically exhausted, though I knew within three months I would face the perils of high school once again. I came to the conclusion during my ongoing summer semester that I would not fare well in my senior year, simply due to the fact that I was burnt out on academics, as well as having my schedule filled with college level classes. I fared decently in my first semester, though I knew that I had First-Year Composition and Intro to Public Communications in the spring, both known at the school to be incredibly difficult, due to the teachers only handing out four A’s in the past eight semesters. Spending four to six hours on a four-page paper resulted in an average grade (C), and spending nearly four days on my final research paper netted a 77%. Ending the class frustrated, I realized that through the class I became a better writer, striving to do better than the previous paper, affecting my overall diction that I used in formal essays, an overall organization in my essays as well as being able to analyze and properly cite sources within my paper.

I have been teaching writing for many years. As a result, I have a variety of papers for students to write that I know are possible for third graders to write. In addition, each year and group of students is different so I adjust the papers they write based on the level of the group and the needs of the individual student.

The efforts of a group always seem to outshine the work of an individual due to the varying talents and contribution of each person. And while I have met and worked with some excellent people at Liberty I have never seen the level of interest and thoughtful argumentation that seems present over a cup of coffee and in person.

I first set foot on a soccer field in January 2015, at the age of 14. In joining FC Toro, one of Haiti’s women’s soccer club, I hadn’t yet realized the impact the sport would have on me. I believe that soccer is more than just kicking a ball around: it is an art that requires many skills, shapes one’s personality and integrates itself into one’s soul.

As a highschool student or a student in general I always have taken school lightly. I never really took more than a night to write a paper. English classes seemed really easy to me. Coming into this class I did not know how it would really be. I was told there was only four writing assignments the whole year so I was thinking, this is going to be easy. This class was different than what I expected. I had to really take the time to think about what I was typing. Rough drafts had a major impact on keeping me on track. The more effort put into them, the less the paper was to write on that sunday night. Those rough drafts are what my peers would look over. The most helpful thing we would do for our papers was peer reviews.