Final Reflection

Final Reflection

Throughout this semester in English composition I had successfully written four major essays as they were assigned to me. The first paper I wrote was on the struggles of growing up in a military home and how being a part of a military family shaped me into the person that I am. Following that assignment, I had the opportunity to develop a rhetorical analysis, which I had never done before and struggled with quite a bit. I chose to analyze a makeup Ad for this assignment, explaining to my audience what the photo meant, going beyond the image itself. I also wrote essays on clinical psychologists and on President Trump’s plan to defund Planned Parenthood. After each essay, I was assigned a reflective essay. These included the topics of each essay, things I may have struggled with, and things I felt strongly about. The reflective essays helped me grow a lot as a writer and allowed me to develop skills that I didn’t have before entering this class.

When I began taking this course back in August, I didn’t know much about writing or what made a good writer. Writing seemed so simple to me, but this was because I wasn’t following all the guidelines and rules I was supposed to. As the semester went on, and the more I wrote, the more I understood about being a successful writer. I was taught where to appropriately place commas, which was something I'd struggled with for a very long time. I had learned how to properly cite my sources, and the importance of giving credit to those whose work I was borrowing. I finally understood what it meant to connect with my audience through my work, and why it’s so important. I learned how to value myself as a writer, and how to take pride in my work. This class allowed me how to open up and understand the differences between others and their styles of writing. There were a lot of concepts that were confusing to me before, that were starting to come together and make sense.

If there was one thing that made me feel most proud, I'd have to say it would be the editing process within each project. When writing an essay, it’s easy to make mistakes. It’s normal to have errors, misspellings, run-on sentences, to repeat yourself, or to run out of things to say. I did all of these things way too often. However, it was within the editing process that I found myself making the most progress. I wasn’t just editing the papers I had written, I was allowing myself to fix mistakes I was making as a writer. I was allowing myself to learn, to grow. I think that’s one of the most important concepts to grasp, that it’s not how perfect your writing is, but what you take from your writing and how much you improve.

Nobody really likes to talk about their struggles when it comes to writing, but we all have them. Some people have trouble sitting down and researching a specific topic, while others may struggle when it comes to getting their thoughts out on paper. For me, I found that allowing my peers to look over my work and give me their thoughts and opinions was most difficult. Sometimes it can be hard allowing others to give you constructive criticism on your own writing. You may had spent hours writing a paper that you thought deserved an A, while somebody else thought it deserved a D. This part of the writing process may be painful, but I learned how important it was. I taught myself to value the opinions of those around me rather than taking offense to them.

Overall, I ran into many struggles and successes within my English classes. I learned a lot from my peers, myself, and my instructor. I’m a different writer, a stronger writer. I’m much more confident when it comes to my work. I’m more open to learning new ideas and allowing myself to grow. These are all things that I plan to take with me onto my English course next semester. I’m proud of the progress I have made, and I cannot wait to continue to learn and improve.