Beth Beeston

Engl 2010
Jim Beatty
7 August 2015
Reflection
Last year, because of certain circumstances I did not pass my English 2010 class,
and needed to take a summer course in order to have enough credits to transfer and play
basketball at a different school. It was unexpected and at the beginning of the summer,
upsetting to me. I wasnt thrilled about summer school. However, that all changed when I
started taking English at SLCC. I began to gain a greater knowledge of writing and good
essay structure in my summer class. I began to enjoy picking topics to write about.
Throughout the semester I learned how to choose my topic/issue of concern, revise and
organize, utilize better research, use peer review, and use my teachers advice in each of
my papers; which helped me become a better writer.
I chose politics in sports as a general topic for all my papers. The reason I chose
this topic is because sports are a big part of my life. In America, sports have a big
influence on our culture. However, many do not understand the importance they have in
our society. Sports programs provide kids many things; two of which are to be a part of a
team, and to help them stay healthy. Another thing they provide are role models. Many
kids look up to collegiate and pro athletes. If athletes and coaches are not doing what they
are supposed to, it can have a negative affect on kids who look up to them. This is why I
chose my topic, to share my experience with corruption in sports, provide insight on
corruption in college athletics, and to share my ideas of how we can fix it. If we can fix

corruption in sports, we will teach kids how to value ethics, while still being in
competitive athletic programs.
One course objective that really helped me throughout the semester was learning
how to revise many kinds of documents and manage my process of revision. The first
paper I wrote for this class, I revised over fifteen times. At the beginning of the year
when I did this, it was a transition for me. The work that I have done throughout the year
has helped me learn this objective because I realized how many times I needed to revise
my paper so that it would receive a good grade.
Revision helped me understand organization. I am a good writer, and made valid
points in each of my paragraphs but there was no organization. Having the eyes of my
peers, my mom, and my teacher, has helped me learn how to use revision in organizing
and arranging my paper.
Research has been a huge part of my writing this last semester, and I was not fully
aware of how much research I needed in order to make my paper credible. Spending
more hours researching topics for my paper made it so that readers would believe what I
was persuading them to believe. In my past writing assignments, I didnt use nearly as
many sources as I did this semester. Each of these sources made it so that my paper was
readable and interesting. I also searched for stories and examples of each of my topics,
which made my papers more fun to read.
As I wrote each of these papers, I realized how well having my peers review my
paper worked. Many helped me with transitioning my paragraphs so they went well with
my thesis. Another really helpful way my peers edited my paper was by telling me what I
was good at, then helping me with what I wasnt good at. A weakness that needed help

was more description in my stories. One peer review that really helped me revise my
thesis and add to my last paper asked this question, What would a fair punishment be to
athletes who broke NCAA rules? I revised my thesis and included a responose to this
question in my paper. This helped me because it was a good question, and helped add
depth to my paper.
One suggestion that I gave out to my peers was to have a supporting topic
sentence in each new paragraph, which referred to the thesis. Some of the papers I read
did not have a very good supporting topic sentences and it was hard to understand the
next paragraph and what it had to with their thesis. Another thing way I helped my peers
was their endings. Some had very sudden endings, and it was difficult to really
understand their mic drop ending. They didnt have a so what? which made it
confusing to tie the entire paper together. Seeing how the endings fit with the entire paper
is my greatest strength as a peer reviewer. I like reading other peoples endings to see
how it ties together the paper, and makes the reader want to learn more about their topic.
Not only has being a peer reviewer helped others, but it has also helped me. As I read
other classmates papers, I gained ideas and strategies used in their papers to improve
mine. Also, I read comments on the papers I reviewed from my other classmates, which
helped me with my own writing because I was able to see their point of view on the
format of our writing assignment.
As I made the corrections in my final portfolio, I realized that the final drafts I
had turned in that had been graded, were nowhere near perfect. This gave me the
understanding that even the best papers still have revisions. My very last paper I received
an eighty-eight out of one hundred, which was my lowest score out of all three of my

papers. I did the corrections my teacher gave me, and felt like if I had turned in my paper
after the corrections given by my teacher were made, it wouldve been an A paper. One
of the most reoccurring changes I made was transitioning into each new paragraph. As I
changed my topic sentence of each paragraph, my paper got smoother and flowed better.
Another change that I made was having a more general opening. In my second paper, my
opening took readers by surprise and wasnt as clear. I changed it. These changes helped
me realize that sometimes my readers arent on the same page as me, and I need to make
things more clear. In all three of my papers there were parts of my stories where the
examples were not summarized very well. As I re-wrote each example, I could almost see
what I was writing happen right in front of me. As a writer, I want my readers to have the
same experience, visualizing what I had, and re-writing my examples so that I had more
detail helped me accomplish that goal as a writer.
In conclusion, I think this semester taught me how to become a better writer
through peer, teacher, and parental revision, research, and organization. I also learned
how to communicate with my peers and use their papers and my peer editing, to improve
what I had written. I am grateful for this opportunity Ive had to learn, and I am excited
for my future writing opportunities as I pursue my college degree.