Reflection I have been at the University of Iowa for a little over 4 months, and while I’ve been enrolled I believe that I have grown and learned more than I could imagine. Through taking this Interpretation of Literature course taught by Anna Williams, I strongly believe that I have learned a multitude of helpful and useful information, improved my reading and writing skills and strategies, and became exposed to some of my weaker areas that I need to continue to improve to become the best I can be. In this class, there has been many papers, quizzes, and homework assignments along with many classes filled with discussion and knowledge presentation. I believe that I have learned many things that have been added to my repertoire towards becoming …show more content…
Over the years, I was always a person who struggled on producing quality material when it came to writing about a book or piece of literature assigned for me to read and analyze. Evidently enough, this struggle carried into this course and I have received subpar grades because of it. However, I believe that the tools, strategies, and knowledge given to me by the instructor has helped me greatly to improve my writing. Not only did they give me more of an outline to follow when I had no clue how to start but also, they have given more confidence that I can finish the assignment. One other thing I felt that was revealed through this class was my high level of procrastination and the consequences in result. After struggling with a few of the papers, I would always find myself putting them off until the day before they were due. This obviously wasn’t a great way to go about any responsibility and I found out the hard way and became very stressed for the last hours before class. I feel as though it is in everyone to procrastinate at least a little bit but now after taking this class I think I will make a greater effort to avoid doing so in the future to better my educational outcomes and my health itself. Throughout my time in this class, I have learned that I do struggle with writing at times and that procrastination is not the
Entering this course I was worried because I have struggled with writing in the past, and writing has never been my strongest area. I feared writing classes in middle and high school, and had the same expectations for this course. I had wondered if I was ready for college English, and was worried that my skills and abilities would not be one the level they needed to be for college courses. My attitude and understanding of my writing process have both changed since the beginning of this semester. One thing that really helped my attitude and confidence was the fact that I was able to complete the assignments and get a decent grade. I was worried that I might not be able to do college level writing, and when I started completing the assignments and learning new ways to write my confidence and attitude changed. Another thing that really helped me throughout this course was that there was plenty of reading and information available to guide me through my assignments. I realized that there was more freedom when it comes to writing than I had experienced in high school. Being able to write more freely, and the freedom to choose what subjects I would write over made the assignments more enjoyable and easier to
In the past three months I feel like I have accomplished a great deal. As the semester comes to an end I find myself reflecting not only how I have survived the first semester but also what I have learned. The most important thing I have learned so far is how to become a better writer. I did not think it could really happen to me. I did not think I could handle all the work. I did not think I could actually become a better writer. Some how after all the hours of writing, and putting effort into the papers that I wrote this semester, I became a better writer. I did this because I concentrated on two very important areas, with the attitude of, if I could just become better in those then I would become a better writer. With help from an awesome teacher and a reliable tutor I have become a better writer by improving my skills in the areas of procrastination and content.
English composition has always been a weak point for me. I despised the thought of having to write down my thoughts on paper in a manner that was appropriate for my teachers. English 1301 introduced me to a new tool to soothe those crazy thoughts through stream of conscious writing. At first I was very skeptical, but it proved to be valuable in understanding that I had more knowledge of the topic of discussion than was realized. Although that tool helped tremendously, it did nothing to quell the quality of my procrastination skills. In high school, I completed most of my homework at the last minute. Coming into college, that clearly could no longer be the case but it still stuck. One concept that utilized my procrastination skills to my advantage was peer review. Peer review forced me to write all of my essays ahead of time in order to make the grade. Not only did it help with my procrastination, it also gave me lots of feedback on my writing. During the narrative essay draft one, I was given a lot of revisionary advice, and that was due to the fact that I wrote the paper at the last minute. Knowing that, when it came time to write the argumentative essay I spent more time actually putting better grammar and diction into my essay because I did not want my peers to think any less of me academically. As
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
Most of us write in some form every day, so you would expect that most of us would be well practiced and pretty good at writing. I read and write all the time; I have been taken several college courses and nearly all of them require write of some form. However, before taking this class not only was I not a good writer, I knew I wasn’t a good writer. Now I am not saying that I am ready to write my first novel, but I certainly more confident in turning in my college papers. The content of this course and the style of teaching was incredibly beneficial to me. Throughout this course we had multiple assignments that were aimed to improve us as writers. I am sure that everyone took something different from this course, and I am sure that each student took more from some areas than others; however for me there were three major things that I saw that I benefited from most. Our weekly craft lessons, grammar plan, but most of all, observational learning.
When I first entered this class, I already knew that it wasn’t going to be easy just because I 'm not good with putting things into words and explaining myself with proper grammar. I can honestly say English 101 has really inspired me to be a better writer. This class affected me in a lot of ways it showed me that writing takes time and you can 't expect a paper to be great without any revising or editing. That has always been a mistake of mine, I would tend to free write a lot it seemed to be the only way I could get my thoughts processed on a paper. I would forget periods, commas and misspell words without even noticing. I never cared much for punctuation, but once I got into this class I knew it was much needed. The topics we wrote on were not just any random topics which in a way made it more interesting to write about things that are actually important and things our generation should be informed about.
When going through life learning is an everyday occurrence as each day is constantly filled with information that is used throughout the course of your life. Each day we get stronger and stronger in whatever we decide to put our minds to, weather that be academics, sports, our jobs we are constantly learning and growing on a daily basis. This semester I have grown in English as I personally felt that through the English 102 course I have been able to grasp some key concepts and writing techniques that will better me for the future. In this class there was a list of goals and outcomes that the instructor felt would be achievable and the best way to learn throughout the course. In each goal throughout this process I feel like I have improved to some degree but there is other things that I do need to touch up on a bit more to further my writing education outside the classroom.
As a strong math, science and engineering student, writing has not come easy to me and by taking this class, I was hoping to become a stronger writer. Throughout the semester, organizing ideas in logical ways has become straight forward thanks to the peer discussions and review I have had. Before this class, I struggled to transition between ideas and discuss each idea in a logical sequence and, unfortunately, my language arts and history grades suffered as a result. By exuding effort and receiving guidance, my hope was to improve my writing and prepare myself for the college writing which would be
As the class ended, I feel that we all accomplished being able to think outside of the box. We learned the value and importance of being more socially mindful. By being able to more mindful of the other people around us and the lives they have lived, we are able to understand where other people may becoming from or why they have the opinions that they have. Overall, the class has truly been an eye opening experience and has instilled new values within myself about how to handle people that will cross my
Throughout this course, I have faced many obstacles. One of the biggest struggles I faced was procrastination and being forgetful. I don’t feel that I am an awful writer; I feel that many of my low grade papers come from writing them the night before they were due. I’ve always had problems with writing papers last minute in high school. The difference between the two is that in high school if I didn’t have a paper in on time, I could turn it in late and still receive positive feedback and a pretty decent grade. In this course, it is a big deal to turn in something late. I feel that if I had used my time wisely and paced out the papers that I wrote, they would be better
This class has helped me realize my strengths and weaknesses in literature. This has allowed me to grow and realize that I am a work in progress. I am confident that by the end of this class my big issues in writing will be improved. Each assignment in this class is helping grow and is making me into the writer I know I can be.
In the beginning of this course on English and writing, I was a little trepidatious, but also quite excited. I have always struggled with writing, so I did not know how well I would perform in this class. At the same time, I was also looking forward to what I could learn, appreciating the thought that my writing could improve by taking a college English course. Indeed, the skills that I have learned during this class have improved my academic writing, and have allowed me to discover areas to develop further.
As a writer, I struggled my first semester, which took a huge toll on my excitement for both English and writing. Although, I came to realize that with a little help, proofreading, and editing (several times), I was able to generate a well-written essay or at best an average one. Regardless of my poor start, I continued to appreciate my love of English language arts courses. I was blown away by all the juicy classical literature and landmark poems I was able to read and comprehend. I loved all of my classes in college, and I honestly enjoyed the readings! There is so much that can be learned from examining literature and research. Without having read and wrote countless assignments about various topics, novels, poems, and more, I do not believe I would still be motivated to become a high school English teacher and literature professor. My love of reading is a love that I hope will be contagious enough for my future students to capture and spread. In the meanwhile, my continuous love of the Brothers Grimm Tales has inspired a concentration in Children’s literature for my second master’s degree, and I am almost positive that I have conjured a snippet of my future dissertation as well from observations in select
Over the period of time that I was in this course, I thought it would be a very simple and easy to finish class. But as time went on, I found myself to be demanded more of what I think, what I feel, what must be relied on my ability to understand the concepts and conventions of not only the essays, but of what goes on in the writers mind when writing.
As an educator, there is always room for reflection and growth. Being in this class has provided an opportunity for both. From my knowledge gained in this class I believe that I have become smarter and have learned how to implement different tool into my teaching as well as general life as a teacher. Of the topics discussed in this class, commitment to students, avoiding burnout and reflective practices had the biggest impact on my professional growth.