Reflective Essay

 

Dear Ms. Andrews,

 

I can definitely say that I enjoyed being in your class. After not doing so well in my 1101 class in the previous semester, I was greatly discouraged about attending another English course. However, you showed me great patience and care, which was different that my prior professor. That being said, I appreciate everything that you have done for me, and I thank you.

 

I like to think of myself as a creative person, but in most cases, I find difficulty in putting that creativity into my writing. Nonetheless, your assignments helped me channel my thoughts into imaginative pieces. When I jotted down my beliefs for the personal credo, I put a lot of thought because I wanted others to know what I valued most. However, when the time came to write our “This I Believe” essays, I was stumped at another roadblock. Just like Randy Pausch said, these obstacles are necessary in order to learn from our mistakes. Giving students the freedom to choose what to write about can either be extremely easy or one of the most difficult things to do. Therefore, I am pleased with the topics I’ve chosen to write about.

 

From my previous experience, I’ve struggled greatly in English. Honestly, I don’t have any real excuse because I know that I decided what to do or what not to do in those classes. When I came to your class, I was surprised because I never really had a teacher who connected with their students; they mostly assigned things and stuck didn’t allow us to express ourselves. Basically, I didn’t expect anything different after so many years of the same routine. Conversely, my expectations have changed because I know that I’m the one who has to change if I want to do well. It’s easier to be more optimistic with a teacher who is patient and encouraging enough.

 

I think the TIB essay is the most important to me because it contains all of my honesty and beliefs in one piece. It helps me be more straightforward with my writing while also keeping key details. This assignment fostered my growth the most as a person because I added feeling to it. I find that many of my works lack feeling. I need to be grammatically correct or use intelligent-sounding words (even though half of the time I just type the simpler word and find its synonym in Microsoft word).

 

When it came to peer reviews, I felt like I was that student who my classmates didn’t want for a response. Mainly, I’ve struggled with asking essential questions to improve their papers. I found myself just marking incorrect grammar without knowing what the story was even about. I liked having two other people’s responses because I got good feedback from them. Also, the main problems in my writing came to light once they were noticed by another set of eyes.

 

If I were to teach the class, I’d follow a path similar to the one you used. I would keep the TIB essay along with the inquiry research paper because those two assignments help students understand their writing in different ways. I know that I had to put a lot of thought into those projects, and I know that other students would too. Another thing I’d probably try is the good writing exercise that we did earlier in the semester. It was interesting to me how our groups rated certain pieces of text as good or bad without giving them context. Previously, I thought that good writing was something that blew away all of its readers. Although I can still agree with that, I now believe that good writing is timeless. For example, the article “What Writing Is” by Stephen King supports the idea that a good writer can still communicate to anyone regardless of when the text was created.

 

In conclusion, I have definitely started to find my voice in my writing. After several years of struggling with English courses, I think that this year is different. Instead of turning in the traditional homework, the term “blog posts” had a better sound and approach. When I think of blogs, I associate them with many free-writes. And that’s the cool part: many of the assignments in our class consisted of grouping our thoughts and jotting them into our daybooks or wix pages. I never really thought of the tasks as homework since I was posting my personal thoughts for everyone to see. Furthermore, I was able to connect much of my previous knowledge with a new set of ideas to sharpen my skills. By working with fellow group members, I was better able to engage in helpful peer revisions. Not only that, but I made a couple of friends in the process. After class, I could have someone to meet and finish my English work with. Having connections in a social sense is very beneficial to me because I can look at my classmate’s work as examples. This help allows me to better understand what is being asked of me, and I have a recent template to reference whenever I get stuck.