Reflective Essa'y First Draft

Sage

English 5A

December 5, 2016

Reflection Essay

Dear Professor xxx,

Looking back to the beginning of the school year, I have learned so much about writing in my English 5A class. In my portfolio, I will include two pieces of work that show how much my writing has progressed and what I have learned that has helped improve my essays. I have decided to briefly go over the very first writing assignment that I was assigned and the revisions that I have made to it after taking all of my peer and professor’s feedback into consideration. I will also include the second and last writing assignment that I did for the English 5A course in order to show how I have progressed and how much I have learned along with what writing skills I have developed during my first semester of college.

The first writing that we were assigned in the course was to explain what is expected from us as students in college and how it differs to what we were taught in high school. In my essay “Did High School Prepare Me For College Essays?”, I described how high school essays were only about getting the word count down and teachers didn’t really focus on the actual content while in contrast to college where professors really focus on the content of the essay and give feedback based on what could be improved or expanded upon or what is being done well. I used our in class readings of a few pages from The Norton Field Guide to Reading With Writings and the concepts described in They Say, I Say to distinguish what is expected in a college essay, and my own personal experiences to describe what high school teachers expected of us. This writing assignment really helped me realize the different standards that were set for me and made it an easier transition from previous expectations to the new ones.

The first work I have included is my second writing project which was about how different aspects affect a person’s education in America. I have included the third draft as well along with my peer comments because I could not find my teacher reviews. Following is my final revised draft of Project 2. In my informative essay “Money In Education”, I explained how money plays a big role in determining the level of education a person receives in the United States. I tied this essay into our in class readings of Fremont High School and Finland’s School Success. These two readings provided many examples for my topic of which I included in my essay. In the process, I learned the strategy of synthesizing ideas, which is the taking two ideas, whether they be the same or different, and connecting them in order to form your own understanding of the texts, which I put to use by contrasting what Finland’s School Success was saying about their successful school system and what Fremont High School was saying about their failing system. I really enjoyed this topic and doing research on how education is affected by factors that I believe shouldn’t really matter in the field.

This writing assignment really helped improve my writing. It helped me realize my weaknesses in quoting and in writing an informative essay. I used way too many quotes, which I could have summarized, and did not give enough of my own personal input in my third draft. I had difficulty making this essay strictly informative because, in the past, I was mainly taught to write persuasive essays. With this assignment, I learned the importance of sticking to what the prompt is asking for. I have revised my writing and reworded or removed those sentences that seemed argumentative. I feel that my strong points in my essay were in developing my paragraphs, transitioning and my strong choice of quotations. I however believe that I could have further improved this paper by using less quotations and being less biased toward my topic.

Second, I have included my writing for project three, “The Message Behind Carl’s Jr Advertisements.” I added the third draft along with my teacher comments and lastly mt final and revised draft. In this assignment, I discussed how even to this day commercials objectify and overly sexualize women for the purpose of advertising and gave Carl’s Jr as an example of one of these offenders. I tied this project to our in class reading of The Fashion Industry: Born to be an Individual by Hannah Berry. I contrasted Berry’s main idea that the most recent trend of advertisements promote self individuality and build confidence, with the message produced by Carl’s Jr commercials that use attractive, half naked models to promote their burgers. In my essay, I discussed a deeper message behind the Carl’s Jr advertisements and what they really think about women.

I feel that I learned the most with this assignment and personally believe that this was my best work and shows just how much my writing and way of thinking has improved. We had the freedom to write about whatever we wanted so long as we connect it to at least one of our class readings which I believe made the assignment more enjoyable. The peer and teacher feedbacks were very helpful when deciding what to correct in my essay. The strengths in this paper are the very detailed descriptions I included of the advertisements, the way I developed my paragraphs and quotes, and my very strong introduction. My weaknesses were forgetting to give an analysis of the advertisements that I included and my blunt conclusion.

Since taking this class, I have gained a deeper understanding of so many concepts that I was introduced to in the past but never actually comprehended nor incorporated in my papers until now. I learned what MLA and APA formatting was and how to properly use them. I was also taught the strategy of They Say, I Say, considering what others say on particular topic and then establishing your own understanding of the topic, which I used to develop my paragraphs and implement my quotes. I was also educated on the strategy of a “quote sandwich” where first you introduce the topic, then include the quote, and finally explain how that quote ties into your main idea, which allows me to show the reader that I understand what I am talking about.

One bad habit that I had was just throwing in every single quote that I felt pertained to my topic, but I have learned how to summarize all those quotes into just one main point instead. I also had the bad tendency to procrastinate until the last minute which I quickly learned just won’t cut it and now take my time and spend a few days revising my essays.

It was very helpful receiving feedback from my peers through blackboard and our online discussion board, and giving my peers feedback on their writings. It really gave us a chance to help each other out and learn from each others mistakes and progress. I have spent many hours revising each of my projects included in my final portfolio in order to ensure that they are at their very best state for the time being. I am satisfied with the final outcome of each of my essays, however I am aware that there are still many revisions that I can make in order to further improve my papers. I know that all of the strategies that I’ve learned in this class will help me in the near future with the rest of my college profession and my future career goals and because of this class, I have a better understanding of what a college essay requires and what professors will expect from me.

Works Cited

Bullock, Richard, and Maureen D. Goggin, editors. The Norton Field Guide to Reading with Writings. 4th ed., W .W. Norton, 2006.

Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. 3rd ed., W. W. Norton, 2010