Wilson 1 Kelsey Wilson Mr.

Harrell English Composition 1 6 December 2013 Reflective Essay Through my English Composition 1 class, I have learned a great deal about ways to improve my writing process by studying and writing three different essays. By improving this process, it has led to giving me skills that I never dreamed of obtaining. Before this class, I was a mediocre writer, or even worse. What Ive learned in this class has gotten me to another level of writing and critical reading. An example of these skills would be that my citation skills and knowledge have improved tremendously. Another example is that now I am aware of how to incorporate a thesis statement that ties my overall paper together. Ultimately, in Composition 1, I have learned and obtained these concepts and here is my evidence. Our first essay assigned was a personal essay. We were assigned to write a personal narrative of an event that occurred more than three years ago. I was thankful our professor was helping us get our feet wet with the basics because it was my first college essay. In this essay, we focused on mostly the process of drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading, a clear and effective structure, and having a reflection at the end of our essay. We had time in class to revise our classmates papers. It was enforced to read the papers out loud, and I found this to be almost an essential tool when revising because many awkward things in the paper are heard easier. This also helped with the structure of my essay because I could tell it would be more interesting if the action of my paper was moved to the beginning to catch the readers attention. Instead of starting with a boring scene of my mother and I talking, I started with, A sudden chill went from my

Wilson 2 feet up to my teeth violently. I forgot I was in the game for a couple seconds, almost in a daze. I had a sudden bad feeling My eyes got wide as I lifted my foot only to see a flap of skin as thick as a piece of cardboard and as big as the width of my foot dangling like a worm on a hook. The reflection, or conclusion, was a one of the most important parts of the whole paper. It was stressed to be the best part of the whole paper because it is what readers remember most. I revised my conclusion at least three times in order to teach the reader what I intended to with this paper. Our second essay assigned was an analytical essay. We read and did workshops over the book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinners Semester At Americas Holiest University, to prepare for this essay. Our third was a profile essay. We were supposed to interview a person outside of our class, and I decided to interview my old pastor. With these essays, I had to learn how to incorporate in text citations from an outside source, which was something I had not done much previously. In my analytical essay, Convoluted Identity, I wrote, Another example is after going to the Prayer Chapel with Zipper. Roose composes, The first time we did this, I was basically just humoring Zipper But the more we go, the more Im beginning to understand what Zipper sees in it. I like the idea of being prayed for (205). The change in his mind thought is evident, there is a change from feeling nothing to a sort of love and empathy for it. As seen here, I learned how to not only use proper in text citations, but learned how to analyze and have an introduction and commentary after it. I also learned how to use proper mechanics and academic documentation, or MLA formatting. Also, the concept of having a thesis was introduced for almost the first time in my writing career. They were never really taught to me before, but in this class I learned how to place them, how specific to write them, and their purpose. In my profile essay, you can tell what my whole paper is about just by the thesis. It

Wilson 3 reads, Ultimately, the drugs and alcohol she was consuming were prevalent for a time, but then her life drastically changed for the better through Jesus Christ, ending the majority of her struggles that have made her into the strong-willed woman she is today. The thesis is a key element in every paper, just as this created a road map for the rest of the paper to hopefully persuade the reader to keep reading. Lastly, audience awareness was enforced in these papers. I had to write my papers knowing what kind of people were going to read it, anticipating what they already knew to know what to teach them, and what tone to write it in. Once I learned one thing in this class, it carried onto the next essay and every essay after that. Therefore, with our last essay, everything we had already learned was put into play. It was our group essay. The assignment was to use seven or more articles to research, read, discuss, and write about past and current pedagogical practices in the university (or high school). The only really new thing was learning how to collaborate with students from two different schools because of distance learning. This was a useful skill to gain experience with because working with people will never go away, especially in a job setting. Also, when I was writing this paper, I realized some key skills that I wish to improve on in Composition 2. I noticed that my transitions between paragraphs could be better. As long as I keep writing, I should be able to identify better transition words and ways to help the story flow. Another problem Ive pick up on in my writing is my comma usage. I tend to leave out commas throughout my writing. However, a group editing process could be an easy fix to this. Identifying these problems is not only a start, but now it will be easier to pick up on the mistakes in the editing and revision process. I have learned many key things throughout Composition 1 and understand all of them as stated. I gained experience using these in a profile essay, an analytical essay, a personal essay, and a group essay. I learned the basics from my first essay, and kept building onto them after

Wilson 4 that. I am not one for English, but I like learning new things. Because this class taught me so much, I didnt mind it as much as previous English classes. I am only eager now to learn more ways to better my writing in Composition 2.

Wilson 5 Works Cited Roose, Kevin. The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinners Semester at Americas Holiest University. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009. Print.