Reflection_Essay

Reflection Essay In the summer of 2012 when my counselor first told me that I had to take English 49, I was majorly brought down. I thought my writing skills were a lot further along than that of a remedial course. However, come to find out, this class was exactly what I needed to get my confidence up in my writing. I have learned a lot of things this semester that I know will carry on beyond this class into higher level courses beyond Miramar College. The three most important ones I will be taking away are how to efficiently and properly write out a five paragraph essay under a timed limitation, getting a better grasp on grammar, and lastly I am proud of being able to successfully change my tone and writing style effectively based on the situation. When our professor first came to us saying we had to right a timed essay for our midterm, I was nervous to say the least. I had written plenty of timed writings all throughout high school, but this was different. This was college. I knew the professor was not going to grade us easy simply because we were in a remedial course. My timed writings in high school we’re never very well thought out. I would just show up, and expect myself to be able to write an adequate paper in an hour and a half. I knew that this simply would not cut it in this class. So, on my own, and with the help of Professor Jacobs, I compiled everything I needed to write the best essay possible. From gathering articles and quotes, to making sentence outlines, I knew I was ready and I felt incredibly prepared for the task at hand. When it came time to sit down and write the essay, I was calm and collected, and writing the essay seemed to just come effortlessly off of my pencil. Although I was proud of myself for being able to create a well thought out essay like that, I unfortunately made many grammar errors in not only this essay, but in others as well. Growing up, grammar was never exactly my strongest subject in English. In grade school I constantly struggled with the basics of adverbs and pronouns, dependent and independent clauses. Anything and everything with grammar was a struggle for me. So, naturally, it has continued to follow me into college. For example, in my midterm paper I struggled all throughout to use the right tense. I constantly was using, “we,” all the time and I never noticed it until Nina corrected me on it. Luckily, when it came time around for my DTC, I was aware of it and I was able to fix my mistake by keeping all my tenses together and using it correctly. I exchanged my, “we’s” for words such as “this nation.” Along with that, I also picked up on the ability to use FANBOYS, or coordinating conjunctions, to my favor. A great example of this would be when I use “and” or “but” to connect two clauses together. Being able to develop this has really elevated my writing because I no longer have to write in simple sentences, I can expand on them and make them more interesting to read. In the last few works that I had during the semester I became very comfortable with my grammar use and what was correct and what wasn’t. I also learned another valuable skill along the way, changing my tone. Writing is never always on subject or one mood or tone. It is a constant ebb and flow between different styles. If a person is writing a letter of resignation to a company, it is going to have a very different tone than someone writing an argumentative essay on illegal immigration. I was able to witness this first hand during the first few weeks of the semester. Our first assignment was to write a thank you letter to someone who we deemed worthy of being thanked. Whether it was our parents, friends, coaches, professors, whoever, we needed to thank them for something. This was an excellent assignment. It allowed us to have free roam on talking to this person. It was still structured and needed to have a three prong “thesis, but the language was completely different than that of an argumentative essay. I remember in my thank you letter I used some slang with my coach, who I was writing to, and made some jokes to him and it was just a great, informal composition that I very much enjoyed writing. I found that the skill comes into play when you are given an argumentative topic and you need to throw out all you used previously and change the tone to more formal and dignified. Professor Jacobs taught me how to change my tone and what words to use properly to give off a more formal tone and approach. We went over things like using our subordinating and coordinating conjunctions, using words like referring, infer, eluding, all great words that to the reader help give off a more analytical and formal voice. This class has truly been an enormous amount of help for me. I have gained so much knowledge in writing essays and I am very happy to know that this class was not a waste and that these skills will transfer to other classes and help me build on them. Coming into this class, I didn’t really know what to expect. I thought it was going to be a waste of time and money, but it was just what I needed in the end. This class has taught me not only how to write works in multiple tones and voices but also I now have a much better understanding on my grammar usage and on how and where to use FANBOYS. I am very glad that Professor Jacobs had us write two in class essays. This really helped boost my confidence and knowledge on how to prepare for something like that so I’m not completely clueless when I get into the room to write my essay. As I move on from English 49 to English 101, I know I will always look back on this semester and in the end, be thankful that I was able to hone my skills and be much better prepared for the next class.