Reflection Post

Over the course of this semester this class has helped me develop more as a writer. I have taken many writing classes, but in high school they aren’t as serious and your papers don’t really matter as much. In college things are different and you want to do better because you have learned what a good paper looks like. In this class we were shown many examples to give us idea of what our papers should resemble. By doing this, it gave us a jump start because sometimes you just don’t know where to begin with a paper. I had different opinions on all three essays that we wrote and each one taught me something different. We learned different things on clauses, sentence structure and how to do research. You would be amazed how difficult something can be when you don’t know what to type into the Google search bar. It’s a really good feeling when you learn something you never knew and I think in this course I said that to myself a lot. I think one of my main downfalls was time. I never seemed to plan out my schedule good enough to spend as much time as I would have liked on my papers.  Also, I think attending class is very important because that’s how you are going to get the most out of it. If your never there how can you really learn anything? I’d like to talk a little bit about the three papers we wrote this semester and discuss some of the bumps I hit during my writing journey.

Writing project one was meant to address the concerns and issues surrounding the American immigrant experience and the actual impact it has on them. We were asked to write an academic argument where we considered if it was important for individuals to resist or accept assimilation when wanting to identify as an American. I had an extra interest in this writing assignment because my boyfriend’s parents were once immigrants. They had to reshape there lives to fit in so I used that in my paper because when you bring personal stories into a paper, your audience can relate a little bit more. In Ada Maria Isasi- Diaz and Elizabeth Martinez’s writing, they both discuss some of the major issues with discrimination towards immigrants today. I used many examples from the written text and incorporated that into what points I was getting across. This paper helped me realize that even though a writing piece is 30-40 pages long and you might not really want to read it, it’s probably a good idea if you take out some time and do it. It will make you a better writer if you know all of the facts when you are writing your paper.

In writing project two we reflected on toys and films from our childhood and what was so important about them. We then read a piece by Henry Giroux on the analysis of Disney’s animated films. He specifically talked about the often negative racial stereotypes in the films.  This writing project was a little bit more difficult because there was a very long piece that needed to be read and analyzed. There was a lot of information to be looked through. I tried to look up a few different types of movies to see if there  was discrimination in them. The one that I talked about specifically was The Princess and The Frog. This was a movie about an African American princess and it rose quite the uproar around the United States. Some would say it was discriminating against blacks because this was the first we had ever seen of an African American princess. Something that I lack is going into great detail when describing things. I tend to say words like things, everyone, people. These aren’t good descriptive words and it tends to leave you hanging because you don’t know what is being discussed. I think that is definitely something I have gained out of this coarse. When I read through my papers now I’m not just skimming through and trying to get it done, I make sure when I read things I know exactly what I’m talking about and have a good claim to support it. You always have to have a claim when you are doing an academic argument and more importantly the evidence to support that claim. In writing project two I needed to explore different movies and describe exactly why they would cause questions to the Disney critics. 

Our final writing project was an argumentative research paper based on everything we have learned over the semester. We were asked to make a claim about something and then find all the evidence to be able to support it. The topic that I chose to wrote about was the new health care reform plan. I wanted to discuss all of the different elements in the bill and how it was going to reshape our health care. We did this paper a little differently because we used a web blog to do all our writing. Instead of turning in drafts and such we used the web blog to update our writing. In the beginning we did an introduction that introduced us and told about our topic. Then every few days we would post more information we had gained from our research. The coolest part about this was our own classmates were commenting on our blogs and giving us advice when we were stuck. This definitely helped me out a lot because sometimes you just find yourself at a fork in the road. I would have so many ideas running through my head and I wouldn’t know what to do. What I did that happened to help me out a lot was I would have my ideas and then I would research each idea. Whichever one I could find the most factual information on, I would chose. This helped me because if I used all three, my paper would become very confusing and you wouldn’t really know what I was talking about.

Although I don’t feel I did the best work I could have done in this class, I know that I learned so much from english 102. I think that my best paper was writing project one on assimilation. I believe that was the best because It had a really good thesis and story line. I transitioned paragraphs very well and stayed on topic. I also feel that I put the most time into writing project one so that’s why all it’s imperfections have been perfected. Throughout this class,  I have developed as a writer in sentence structure, paragraph transitions and knowing how to relate to my audience. These are just some of the many things I have taken in from this class. I plan to remember these things and put them to good use in my speech class this summer. I’m confident to say that I feel I’ve earned atleast a B+ in the English 102 writing course, although I would really very much like an A.