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Kimberly Dolores
Professor Jaclyn Hymes
English 113a
6 December 2015
Reflective Essay
I have been a student at California State University Northridge for only 1 semester and I
have already grown and gained more knowledge that I did not believe was possible. I graduated
from high school not that long ago and it did not occur to me that I will already feel the drastic
change. Being in Professor Hymes class of English 113a has taught me more about english
literature and helped me gain more of perspective on different types of essays. There were
moments where I did become frustrated when I do not understand a concept, but with Professor
Hymes guidance I was able to expand my writing skill to unknown territory. I am now able to
express myself more clearly and use different appeals to strengthen my writings. The bitterness
of English is slowly decaying in me because now I am more capable and feel more conformable
with expressing myself in words.
When I started English 113a, I entered the class feeling horrified that I would have to
encounter writing essays that did not suit to my taste, but that was not the case. From my past
experiences, my former teachers would give lifeless topics and I would have to write an essay
that limited my creativity. To my surprise, professor Hymes assigned exercises that involve
amusing readings which were two Hyperbole and a Half stories, "Solutions to Saturday's Puzzle"
by David Sedaris, and a poem. I was feeling anxious at first, but Professor Hymes started off
smooth almost as if welcoming me to college with a discussion on reading strategies, annotation,
summarizing, and paraphrasing; something that I am familiar with. In most of my classes I read,

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discuss, and write long papers; however, I quickly found out that there was so much more to it
while undergoing the course.
I learned to always ask myself why in every piece of writing that I do and sharpened
my reading skills to discover a deeper meaning in any text and to critique it as well. At first I
struggled with digging for deeper a meaning in text because it does not always reveal itself at
first glance. I challenged myself to understand analyzing because I know it is an important ability
to have in order to build up my essay. The class started off broad and as time went by we got
more specific. Professor Hymes prepared lessons that were not that frightening, as when I had to
write an argumentative essay using sources to support my claim. By knowing these tools made
my writing a whole less stressful because by the time I write, I will already have a lot of things to
talk about with the help of dissecting my readings. Now I know to always have a pen or pencil
along side me because there are so many things that run through my mind while reading; giving
out feedback on what the author said. It took a lot of effort to improve my writing, but I realize
that I can not longer push it aside because it is an ability to have for the progression essays.
In Progression One which was writing a narrative prompt about a personal event in my
life was nerve-wracking. I was not sure if my readers would understand what I am trying to
picture. Or if I was spending too much time on one scene. With the book that Professor Hymes
assigned to us it made it clear on how to lay it out. I usually would not make some sort of outline
when it comes to writing, but I decided to give it a try. I had an enjoyable time while writing a
narrative essay because I was able to use my creativity to how my heart content. I always had
love for narratives because to me it is unique on how one person can describe a scene or express
a feeling of the character. For this progression, I used a lot of pathos because I wanted my
readers to feel the sadness and the anger, the feelings I was going through during that rough

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patch. I did well on the Narrative Progression one, but Professor Hymes pointed out that I left
parts unanswered and a whole lot of punctuation mistakes. For Professor Hymes to give back
feedback and point out my mistakes made it clear on what I had to work on.
A long standing hatred is writing an argumentative essay. For some reason I would
always dread the thought of writing one because I knew that it requires more work. I had
problems on creating my thesis because I know what I want to write about, but it is hard for me
to put it into one sentence. I chose to write about immigration because it is a heated debate that
has been going on for a long time. Though I struggled onto staying on topic and the essay would
not fit together because there was so much information that I wanted to put in my essay from my
readings. It took a while for me to stop pouting and to start all over into creating an outline after
it was graded. I organized everything by how much information that I got from the peer reviewed
articles. It suddenly hit me that there will be times that I will have to reach that extra mile, but it
is necessary when it comes to writing.
There are a couple of things I still lack on, but the list of capabilities is much longer than
I started with. Being enrolled in English 113a helped me gain more knowledge on writing
because I was finally able to grasp the concepts. I have learned here how to write and express
myself, how to back myself up with credible sources, and how to critique my readings. By
pushing myself to understand the material instead of brushing it aside made it a lot easier when it
came down to writing my essay. I now understand how to organize my thoughts because it is an
important skill to have in my essays. I feel more positive, encouraged, and comfortable on
writing essays thanks to my professor who took her time and taught the writing techniques to
strengthen an essay.