Dashira Mendez

Professor Rogal

English 110

May 18, 2020

            Over the course of the semester I was able to achieve the course objectives with the help of Professor Rogal and some of my peers. Throughout the semester, the class received various types of writing and reading that I think helped us improve our writing overall and that helped us understand readings more and to analyze them more deeply. I myself think that I was able to do all of those assignments the right way even though I struggled with a few.

The first essay assignment was the Personal Narrative essay in which I had to put into practice my storytelling from a moment in my life that changed me or had a big impact in my life. For this essay we also had to put into practice our abilities to tell details and emotions as specific as possible. I think that I did a really good job with my storytelling as well as telling the details and the things that I was feeling. For example, in my essay I went into details about the way that I was feeling when I had to leave the only place that I really knew my whole life for a new one. I stated “I got really sad again because I didn’t know how New York was how school was here”(Personal Narrative essay). In this quote from my essay I state how I felt and described emotion when it came to me writing my paper because I talked about how sad I was when I had to leave for New York. I also show this when I described how I felt when I was meeting my dad for the first time that same day that I was moving. I said “As we landed my nerves started to kick in again because I knew I was just minutes away from meeting my dad(Personal Narrative essay). This other quote from my essay also shows and describes how I felt and the details that I put in since I clearly stated the way I felt and added the detail of being a few minutes away from meeting my dad. Moreover, in my essay I also added a lot of details as shown when I described how amazed I was to finally see an airplane in person. For instance, I state “I was very impressed with how big and tall the airplanes were because I had only seen them high up in the air and didn’t know what they looked like close up”(Personal Narrative essay). This quote from my writing shows how I practiced storytelling with the use of details because I described my reaction to seeing airplanes close up for the first time. Writing this Personal Narrative essay helped me with my writing because now, I am able to storytell using a lot of detail as well as emotions.

The second essay assignment was the Exploratory essay where I had to find a question or topic to talk about and information that would answer that question or statement. In this essay, I had to put into practice my information finding techniques as well as my citing ones as well. I also had to be able to support what I was saying. As shown by my writing, where I wrote about how sports are beneficial, I state “Sports require us to move our bodies which leads to exercising” and then after that I add the source where I got my piece of information from in parenthesis. This shows how I was able to put supporting my ideas into practice because I state the source I used and the reason which is also citing my evidence. This essay also put into practice my abilities for me to be able to cite my sources after I finish using a piece of information that is not mine because I had to research about my question which meant that I had to cite my sources after using information that is not mine. For example, A sprain is a “stretch in the ligament, the band of connective tissues that joins the end of one bone with another”(Hand out on sports injuries). This shows how I was able to practice my abilities to cite information in this essay because I had a quote that was not from my own words so I had to put parentheses at the end with the name of source. Lastly, this essay also helped me with citing pieces of information because before I did not know that I was supposed to put the source after the quote and not at the end of my paper. With this essay, I had a little bit of trouble because my topic/question was not clear at first and then it was too basic so I had to change it. I learned a lot from it because like I said I got to practice my citation of sources after I used a quote that was not mine and also find more complex and developed topics to talk about.

Another thing that I learned throughout the course of this semester was being able to analyze and understand readings, especially some that were not that easy to analyze or interpret. For example, the Brent Staples essay “Black Men in Public Space” I had to analyze the article to find the themes, what the essay addresses and how I felt about the whole situation that the author described throughout the essay. Also, the excerpt UnSpun by Jackson and Jamieson in which I had to analyze the text in order to answer some questions and for good information about evaluating things. This excerpt was not an easy one to read since there were so many things going on and it was kind of long at the same time. This essay taught me some ways to evaluate information and that not everything seems like it is.

Throughout this semester I was also able to engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes which helped me a lot when it came to developing my writing more and adding to it. Getting feedback and comments from my peers and giving feedback to them as well really helped me see some things that I did not know that I was doing wrong. I got to learn a lot from those comments and feedback because I was able to see what other people thought about my writing and I was also able to see that when we think everything is perfect or good there is always room for improvement. The photo below shows one of the comments from the many feedbacks and comments that I got this semester.

Another course learning outcome from this semester was being able to explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. Rhetorical situations like stance, purpose, audience, genre and media/design. For example, in class we went over Brent Staples’ essay “Black men in public space” and I was able to discuss the purpose, stance, genre and media/design with my classmates.

Being able to develop strategies for reading, drafting, revising and editing was another course learning outcome. In this semester, I was able to practice my drafting skills for some of the essays that I did not know what to write. I was also able to develop my reading skills with the readings that professor Rogal assigned. Lastlt, I was able to develop my revising and editing skills because every time I got feedback from someone in the class I would go back and fix the things that they suggested. The following images are an example of my drafting from my personal narrative essay.

Overall, I learned a lot of new things throughout this semester that I know will help me later on in my writing life as well as my academic life. I learned that not everything is easy especially being in a highschooler and being in a college class where you don’t really know everyone and everyone being college students. I did not only get to learn from the readings that were assigned but from professor Rogal and my classmates as well. I was given many ideas and suggestions from my classmates on how I could improve my writing and essays that I know will also help me later on when I do more essays and assignments that require me to do some of the things I did this semester. Even though I still have a long way to go with my writing I can say that this semester definitely say that I improved as a writer a lot throughout this semester.