What I Learned In This Class

Oh, to be a Black woman in America. When I entered college my interest consistently gravitated into the African American courses, since I wanted to learn more about my ancestors and my cultural history. The course name alone completely captured my attention and I could not pass up the option for this to be one of my elective classes this semester. Prior to this course, I had not taken a class that was centered around my gender or race. Therefore, I had hoped to learn more about the internal and external challenges of being a Black woman in America. Throughout weeks of captivating classroom lectures, intense readings, and additional coursework this class has surpassed my expectations, and I am not the same young woman that I was when this

This year in Honors Freshman Literature and Composition, I have grown tremendously as a writer. My essays from the beginning of the year to the end have showed that I have greatly progressed in many skills that I have worked on. While I have acquired strengths this year, I also have weaknesses that I hope to improve next year in my writing.

Writing was never a known weakness of mine. However, I could never confidently call it a strength. Throughout the course of this semester, my writing style has evolved and I have rid my writing of many habitual mistakes. I have learned to appreciate writing much more, and enjoy the moments where my mind meets words on a paper. Creativity has always been one of my strong suits, but through this course I catered my creativity to compose a variety of essays and speeches. Likewise, public speaking is something that I did not struggle with in the past, yet the structure of the class required a video speeches which was fairly new to me. All in all, I have been able to identify and modify gaps in my composition of writing and speech as a result of this course.

Throughout this summer course, I have acquired many new skills that will be useful in the future. Reading class has helped me to become a college freshmen at Central Connecticut State University this fall. It was an important opportunity for me in a variety of ways in gaining and sharpening skills in writing and reading. It was a great learning experience for me. Especially, that I did not like to read or write before, but after I had this class, it teaches me the skills of reading, writing, and how to study for quizzes, tests, and do projects. I had learned so many new things about writing and reading in general and my own style. I gained skills that I use in my writings now that make my work better.

The assignments in this class have shown me that I’m a better writer than I initially thought. The assignments have where I have improved, areas where I still need to improve, and how skills developed here can transfer into other courses.

Though my experiences with writing have not been as great throughout the years, I am beginning to improve. I still have notable weaknesses, but then again everyone does. With that being said, I am looking forward to improving my strengths and weaknesses in writing this semester.

I believe it is important for any student who wants to do their best in a class to take a moment to evaluate their own work to determine the rate their writing is progressing and how they can continue to advance their writing. When I looked through my own work I asked myself “what have I learned this semester?” and “what do I still need to learn in order to improve my writing?”. Answering both these questions will help me with my last step of my self-evaluation, developing a plan to learn new skills.

As a writer you make mistakes with your work, but you can also fix things, so the next time you won 't make those mistakes again. In the area of writing I feel like I can use some more improvement with my punctuation and where I place them. When an assignment does come up and after I write it each time I learn something new. Not only writing in this class can be easy at times it can also be challenging, which I love about these assignments. I enjoy writing because at times I do get challenged, but I enjoy that challenge that Mr.Perry gives me, because it helps me improve as a writer.Overall as a writer in the beginning I felt like I was not a great but now as the semester is starting to end I feel more confidant and I feel I can write

Throughout the duration of the first-year experience so far, I have learned many useful things. From skills that will help me in the classroom, to skills that will help me in a future job setting, to skills that will guide me toward helping and serving others, this class is preparing me. No matter what situations I encounter, I will be able to fall back on what I have learned and will continue to learn in this course.

This week was exciting for me. I am actually going to be in the classroom three times this week on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I am excited to see what happens on Friday because it will be a new day and will be full of new adventures. We also get to dress up like a character from Because of Winn Dixie; I plan on being Ms. Franny the librarian. One high from this week was I taught my first lesson and it went really well. The students loved my lesson they had so much fun and their reactions were hysterical. My cooperating teacher also gave me positive feedback on my lesson and she said that she could tell the students really enjoyed my lesson. One of the most exciting parts of my lesson however, was the ending when we had our discussion. I could tell that the students had really learned the importance of adding detail and specifics to their sequencing writing. One low from the week was that I had to have a discussion with one of my students about respect. The teacher then confronted the student and they had to write me a note apologizing for being disrespectful. I hope that I will still be able to build a strong relationship with this student, and that our relationship is not strained because of this interaction. Even

I feel like I learned a lot from this course. I think, overall, this course was very eye-opening and made me understand, and want to better understand, issues involving gender and how they effect society. I would say the one of the most important pieces of information I learned was just how much the idea of gender and gender roles influences everyday life. I had never really thought too much about the determents of gender or traditional masculine and feminine ideals before this class, and how we as a society promote and encourage the belief that a person’s gender or sex creates different innate, natural attitudes and attributes. Learning about how important society’s views of gender is, and how it affects the way we learn and think, makes me look at our culture in a different way. For example, before this class I never realized how much women are objectified and put under intense Photoshop in advertisements. This better understanding of the way society is helps me take a step back and look at our culture in a different way, and allows me to become more aware of the issues surrounding gender, sex, and the ideals of masculinity and femininity.

Some skills that I learned in PD #1 was to speak out loud more and to step out my comfort zone. I hate public speaking because im super insecure about my voice and im afraid that people will misunderstand what I say and take it the wrong way. It happens to me often. But I learned that no one really cares as long as you voice your opinion right and say the things you want to say. You do what you have to do to take care of your responsibilities. Another skill I learned in PD#1 was to ask questions without having to be questioned about your question. In the drawing activity, I was able to clearly describe my drawing to my partner without having her messing up. It shows that I was able to talk out loud and that I should talk more slowly without

The main thing that stood out for me was Universal Design for Learning, and how much “assistive technology” and “accessibility” tools benefits EVERYONE! There is no such thing as average! Even as adults we benefit from this approach!

During the semester, I learned to focus on my strengths and work on my weaknesses. I could use my organization, paragraph structure, and transition skills to keep high quality writing. This will be helpful to assure an above average grade when I take English 102 during the summer. On the other hand, although students often try to avoid their weaknesses, I see them as useful. Knowing my weaknesses gives me the opportunity to work on them until they become strengths. For example, as I mentioned before, organization is presently my biggest strength. However, at the beginning of the course, it wasn’t. I had to practice and work on it until it became natural and

Writing is an art that improves through time with consistent practice and exploration of one’s skills. Prior to this class, I have always considered myself to be an efficient writer. However, my writing was limited in the scope of academic writing, due to the fact that throughout my high school career, that is the most of what was expected to be written from me. In this class I was able to dive further into my writing and explore with my skills in the context of creative writing, poetry, as well as fictional writing; something I had little to no experience in. With the correct guidance from you, my professor, and consistent practicing, I was able to create five pieces that I believe to be some of my best work in these particular genres of