Reflective Reflection

In When We Fight, We Win by Greg Jobin-Leeds it says that “comparison can block compassion both for others and for ourselves.” I agree with such statement; I think that listening is a skill you learn throughout time. One can pretend to listen without really getting anything out of the conversation that one is having with that other person. In the Compassionate Listening workshop, I got to do it with Rachel Kurland and I sit and listened to her talking about the moment her friend treason her. I tried to understand her plight, why would she not cut that friendship off, I understood she loved her friend, however, I could not resist bringing my biases to our conversation. I asked myself, why is Rachel, such a good, loving, and smart person,

The most immediate risk was trusting my partner with my grade. We split up the labor for the project evenly. Although I did help my partner and provided insight on some of his parts, there was a risk in trusting my partner to compose his part in a way that met my satisfaction. Moreover, I was not used to co-authoring an essay. It was difficult making two different styles connect and seem cohesive, which meant I was risking since I could have been working by myself. I also risked when trusting my partner with providing me with feedback when revising. He was the only person that revised my writing for this project, so I depended on him to see any mistakes I made in my writing. Nonetheless, I learned to trust him since I realized he was also risking the same. There was a mutual dependence; my partner was trusting me and I was trusting

With the guidance of Mrs. Smythe, my peers, and my parents, as well as my own determination, I have gained much better control over the English language. However, I also learned something about myself as a person throughout my time in English 9/10. I used to let fear control me in English, which would translate to other parts of my life. Throughout my seventh and eighth grade years of Middle School, I would sit in silence for entire class periods, afraid to begin my essays, afraid to have to accept that it may not be as good as my other school work, afraid of what others would think. However, I learned this year that people like my mother and grandmother were not disappointed in my work but instead would suggest ways by which I could improve my writing. Additionally Mrs. Smythe constantly helped through the feedback she provided. Even when I received my first essay back, one that was clearly not to the best of my ability, she gave balanced feedback between ways to improve my writing while also providing supporting for future assignments. “It is not necessary to convert an entire scene, just the moments that are important. The inclusion of text in the last body paragraph is most appropriate, although there is still a bit too much of it. Good effort...” Even if I forget who said what in Romeo and Juliet, or the name of the main character in The Book of Lost Things,

Within this essay I will be concentrating on explaining how an individual can implement reflection in their learning experiences. Applying skills of reflection to a particular learning experience such as induction week will be the main focus of this essay as it will convey the importance of reflecting upon the experience of working with other students.

Whenever an assignment was given, I used to just write everything that I could think of, similar to a free write. After doing a free write in my scrap notebook, I would then go back and insert examples from the text to further prove my points. After taking this class, I learned that is the incorrect way to write academic papers and that the best way is to make an outline instead so that I can make sure that every point is proven, clear, accurate, and most importantly understandable. I was able to see the improvement of how outlines helped through my first essay. The essay was about picking out an image and explaining its means to the visual context and its impact on culture. My first draft I had learned that I needed to step back and see

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.

Everyday writing is embarked upon in some form or fashion, most without thought. For instance, consider social media; in years past, posts to social media on nearly any topic, was acceptable, more from a journaling concept, no real thought to the writing. Not so today, that type of freedom could cost one their employ, friendship, or associations, thus, fear of judgment could stifle one’s ability to articulate and deliver what could be great writing. On the other hand, relating to this essay requirement, equally generating fear in the writing relationship. Hence, creating a heightened fear of a poor grade, due to the inability to articulate the emotional relationship I have with writing, ending with a poorly-written paper. That being said, fear can also work in one’s favor.

Reflection is a major factor in "developing self-awareness" to improve services provided to everyone around me, this is to develop my own understanding in realising the good and bad made previously. Moving forward with a better understanding, as well as rectifying the mistake whilst recognizing the good points, (Horton-Deutsch and Sherwood, 2008).

I do not recall learning about reflective practice in my undergraduate studies. Reflective practice according to Barbour (2013), “is the cyclic process of internally examining and exploring an issue of concern, triggered by an experience, which creates and clarifies meaning in terms of self, existing knowledge, and experience; resulting in a changed conceptual perceptive and practice” (p. 7). According to Barbour (2013), reflective process has many positive outcomes to help guide the nurse to become an expert nurse that can make on the spot decisions that do not interrupt patient care. I feel that reflective practice would have been beneficial to help guide me from a student nurse to a practicing nurse with critical thinking skills.

This semester I learned a lot about writing in English 151. It has been a roller coaster ride with these essays for me this semester. I learned step by step how to write a good essay and how to have your readers be engaged in what you’re trying to tell them. Each essay I did has taught me something valuable I can take to the next level of English. I feel as if as the semester went by I did not take my writing that seriously and that reflected in my grades I received in each essay. It made me a better student and writer and it will reflect next semester. In this essay, I will reflect on what I learned throughout this semester that you should apply in your writing when you begin English 151.

During the semester, the class was assigned writing tasks that were intended to showcase our strengths and weaknesses in our writing. We were forced to think outside the box and expand on ideas in our readings. In the beginning of the semester, I was not certain what to except from this course. Writing has never been my strong suit, early in the semester I struggled with the writings. In high school, English class was not my favorite subject causing me to not gain the knowledge I should have, coming into this course with a poor knowledge about expository and narrative writing. Once I entered this course, the information that was received about expository and narrative writing helped me tremendously. I became accustomed to the new writing

"The most difficult and complicated part of the writing process it the beginning." -A B Yehoshua. I have been through a multitude of writing assignments and projects throughout my college career, and I can say that beginning them has always been the hardest thing for me to do. There are many that I don’t remember but, those that I do, are the ones that have influenced my writing technique the most. Some assignments and projects have influenced my writing while working through them, while others I learned from mistakes by eating the dust of a bad grade due to grammatical errors, or poor planning. Both of which, have shaped me to be the writer I am today. There are many weaknesses that I have overcome in the writing process through major assignments,

All my life I have struggled with English due to the fact that I did not learn English till the age of seven as it was not first language. Programs like ESL have helped me improve my English tremendously through high school. Over these past two quarters in college, I learned to improve my writing more than ever, as I have learned that there is no limit in writing. I was able to learn strategies that helped me improve my essays. Over the course of this quarter I was able to learn many new strategies that will help me write my future papers efficiently. I have also learned my strengths and weakness. This quarter I have learned the importance of writing. Throughout high school, I dreaded writing essays, due to the fact that I was not good at it. However, this quarter, writing 20 has changed my opinion on that.

Many students of all ages have issues with writing, the only way to get good at writing is to have experiance. I never paid much attention to my writing skills in high school, I just did not care about writing. This year as a freshman in college I have been struggling with writing this semester in GSW 1100. Even though I have not been doing well, I understand that writing in college is extremely important to learn and develop. This is important because most courses in college have writing in them. As the semester has progressed, I have slowly started to understand where I am with writing and where I need to improve. Revising my essays is a great way to learn from my mistakes. Although my writing is not great yet I am slowly getting there with this class. I believe I have improved my writing a great deal in several areas over the course of this semester and I feel that my portfolio shows this. I have learned to develop my thesis and make it clear, to recognise sentence boundaries errors, and to see and fix the many grammar errors in my writing.

I enjoyed this week’s reading about risks in writing. It’s good to know that I am not the only one that struggles with this. I would say that I have two big risks in writing. The first one is being too personal in my writing, or not being personal enough. In writing, I never know the right amount of personal information to use in an essay based on some prompts. For academic writing that my professor reads, I usually tend to not put a lot of personal information or feelings in. Yet in writing for like a scholarship or a cover letter, I put more personal information in because that audience wants to learn about me. But how much is too much? Sometimes I feel like I am just bragging about myself and I do not like to gloat. The second big risk in