What I Learned From Comp II: A Reflection

When I scheduled my classes last winter, I knew I had to fulfill my requirements for general education and take English Composition II. I had heard from my oldest daughter that Comp II was no fun at all and when she took it, she was bored to tears. Not knowing any better, I took her word and prepared myself for a rather boring and uneventful semester of “robot writing”. The kind of writing that was dull and made one’s eyes cross from boredom. I soon found out that this didn’t have to be the case. Academic writing and research could be enjoyable and it was not at all boring.

According to Dr. Bean’s class syllabus, the primary goal for this course is to, “help you develop the literacy skills you’ll need during your academic career”. In other words, this class was designed to teach students to write like professionals in an academic discourse community. Through several writing and research assignments, we acted as researchers on a quest to examine “how discourse—written, spoken, and digital—is shaped by social practice”. Although I felt I was a decent enough writer, I had doubts that I could accomplish such a tall order of directives. In the end, I found that I could do it, and I did it rather well, thus giving me the boost I needed to continue to move forward on my dream of obtaining a college degree.

There were several new concepts that were introduced to me this semester including the topic of genre. I found out that it was more than a classificatory tool. According to Bawarshi and Reiff, genre has changed into “a shaper of texts, meanings, and social actions”. In other words, genres are used to change and influence social interactions and to produce meaning-

Lynette Zorzi-2 making. I was able to use this conc...

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... the value of organization and planning. The structure provided by the instructor truly helped me break down very large projects into smaller, more approachable assignments. For example, for each essay due, there were smaller deadlines that needed to be met. As I kept up with those smaller assignments, the actual large due date was not intimidating and I was able to handle the stress better. I will definitely use this approach in my future academic writing assignments.

Admittedly, these are only a few of the skills I learned in Comp II. Academic writing is necessary to help me get to the next phase of my educational journey and I value the lessons I learned this semester. I found out that I do indeed belong here and I have the skills to move forward. I consider completing English Comp II as an extremely useful accomplishment that I can add to my toolbox.