English 102 Class Reflection

As the semester finally approaches the finish line, I revisit my past work to compare and contrast how this class has developed me into a successful writer at the college level. Throughout the year my writing style has developed and become broader as I have learned how to incorporate more of my personal views as well as reliable, unbiased information. This portfolio is a representation of how many things I have learned along the way while being an English 102 student.

Before taking Mrs. Hawkins’ English 102 class, I used to hate writing; no, I despised it. Along with my hatred for writing, I, as many other college students, am a terrible procrastinator. In my past English classes, my procrastination had affected my grades, especially when it came to papers dealing with multiple steps and drafts, due to the fact writing takes many timely processes to

write a worthy assignment.
From reviewing my first essay in English 102, I realized just how much my writing has significantly improved. Essay one was a learning experience for me, which helped me improve my critical thinking skills along with how to express my opinions on given topics. Originally, I searched the Internet to find more information that what was presented to thus creating a mount of information that was seemingly useless. Because of this paper, I now write more opinionated, when needed, and give reasoning behind each of my beliefs. Another learning experience from essay one was the use of an outside source to provide editing. Many errors were made that could have been easily corrected if I had gone to an outside source to assist me with my editing.
By far, essay two was the not the most challenging topic for me to write about but it was definitely a struggle.

Because I have never been one that found an interest in history, much less comparing and contrasting two historical topics, it was hard for me to produce a paper. As a result of my lack of interest, I chose a topic that was not an adequate comparison. For essay two I decided it would be a grand idea to write about the comparison and contrast of Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. Wrong. According to multiple articles I found on the Internet, Trump is Hitler reincarnated, which I believe is absolutely absurd. While writing this essay, I was able to develop my writing by stating my opinion strongly while weeding out the good and bad articles found on the Internet to back up my opinion. To find reliable articles, I had to use my critical thinking skills, which I had not done as much in the past. During the time period for essay two’s topic proposal, as I already stated, I did not put enough thought into what topic I chose; this helped me learn that picking a topic is the most important step when writing a

paper.
Essay three was the most challenging for me for multiple reasons. Reason one: I had never written an annotated bibliography before which made me nervous. To my surprise, the annotated bibliography made it easier for me to set up my paper and get it started. The annotated bibliography helped me decide on a strong topic and find sources that were reliable and also what information to use from each source.
While being an English 102 student, I have learned just how important time management is and how it plays a huge roll in the success of writing a paper.