Reflective Essay: Class Participation In The Classroom

Writing was something I never particularly looked forward to before taking this class. I had a difficult time putting my thoughts together and really getting my point across. During my time in this class, my level of writing has increased exponentially compared to where it was when I was in high school. This class was very well constructed, and made the learning process one of the easiest I have experienced. Furthermore, I found the discussions made me think critically about the subject and that class participation in these discussions was great. I will reflect in this essay on many of the things learned while taking my first college course, writing 101.

My average grade when taking any english class in high school was below average,

but Comfit helped to change that. Unfortunately, it did not change it right away. The first time I took the Accuplacer test inside of Comfit reiterated that, as I scored a failing grade. Being as though this was my first college course, I wanted to do well. I wasted no time getting to the workout center inside of Comfit just to try and better understand some of the easier mistakes I was making. Each assigned comfit lesson furthered my knowledge on things such as comma usage, passive and active voice, and sentence fragments. Another lesson I found that helped dust some of the cobwebs off of my writing was subject verb agreement. Furthermore, Comfit was great at breaking their workouts and lessons down so that it catered to the individual, making a otherwise complicated online course easy for some. In conclusion, Comfit was one of the reasons I found this course easy to understand and invaluable.
Discussions were one of my favorite aspects of this course, but were also a great way to get warmed up when getting to write our essays. The subjects on some of the discussions made you think outside the box a little to be able to present an argument not already brought to the class. At the same time, it incorporated some of the grammar subjects we were studying. One of my favorite discussions was one about the rhetorical appeals. It was just another example that people use these everyday to get their point across, especially in politics. Appealing to your audience is very important when writing a paper you feel strongly about. This was something I struggled with early in my writings, as I focused on things that I knew I would be interested in and not necessarily what my target audience would be inclined to keep reading. One of the other discussions we had was on logical fallacies and argumentation kills. These were great to be able to bring different arguments to the same topic if needed. If it wasn’t for the discussion posts, I would still be writing for self and would be very one sided when composing future papers.
The largest struggle I faced was my research paper.

I had a hard time getting excited about writing this as I knew it was going to be my most difficult assignment yet. When practicing the research resources we were going to use, I was foggy and uninspired because I had trouble finding things to get energized about. During the second time doing research, I knew I had to start getting my motivation from somewhere to be ready for the third essay that was due. I found that if you dig deep enough, you can always find something inspiring to write a research paper about. One thing I had searched on was technology in the classroom. This is a very broad search term that, for me, wasn’t something that was all that interesting to write about. Because of this, I searched multiple pages on this broad topic to see what I could sub-topic from it. I then came upon an article about a virtual reality classroom which peaked my interest because I actually have a couple friends in the field of study. From this article it was much easier to get inspired about doing research. This search exercise we did gave me the confidence that when it was time to do my research paper, I wouldn’t have any problems and would be able to complete it. All in all, the research paper was tough but was a necessary paper to write in order to further my skills in

writing.
This class may have been basic and required, but the skills I have attained from it are indispensable. Now whatever class I take for college, I’ll have the tools from this class to make them a little easier. I’ll also be able to write better reports for work, and in emails for everyday contact. As I’ve also said before, these skills will help me when I eventually open my own business. I have no doubt that I will have more of a chance to succeed because of what I’ve learned.