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Cindy Chavez
Professor Jackie
English 113A
7 December 2015
Reflection Essay
Throughout my first semester at Cal State University, Northridge in my English 113A class,
I have had essays that were written in order to improve my growth as a writer. The following
essays that I have done in English 113A class have improved my writing in many ways. The
essays have helped me to build my essay structure and work to improve on my writing. I have
learn from this class that it can be difficult to organize an essay but it is crucial in order to bring a
clear essay for the reader. In this class, the progressions that were assigned were to help built up
structure that would follow up to the final progression essay.
The progress I have done in this class has helped me to build my essay structure. The first
progression that was assign was narratives, I wrote a story about my childhood that was an
interesting moment or unforgettable. The class had read the many narratives assigned as the
course reading to better understand the essay I had to write in the class. The childhood story that
I chose was about a gift I was given on Christmas and what I chose to do with it since I disliked
the gift, it was called That Dora Doll (Chavez: That Dora doll). I wrote about the experience
of receiving an unexpected gift I disliked, My five year old mind could not handle it, so I did
what any kid would do at that age, I went to my room I threw that Dora doll towards the wall and
told my mother I hated this doll as I tears streamed down my face. (Chavez: That Dora doll)
The reaction I had toward the gift I had received on Christmas was confusion and
disappointment as any other kid would be when receiving a gift that was not desired.

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The second progression that was assigned to the class was on the topic of visual rhetorical
analysis. The essays were about an advertisement we had to choose in order to be able to
describe it in detail. I had to write about the reasoning of the advertisement I chose to write about
and it was the real cost of tobacco commercial. The essay had to also argue about the meaning
behind the essay I, Amanda Greene for example, In this short advertisement with Amanda
Greene pin points who is the target audience of the essay. The audience are high school students
since they are at the point of their lives where they are confused about themselves. (Chavez: I,
Amanda Greene) This is what I believe to be the target audience of the commercial. The
commercials that are being produced all have something they want to sell weather its money,
advice but something the advertisement want to advise people about, the real cost of tobacco.
The real cost is that it can cause many side effects to the human body and the includes death.
The final progression of the class was the arguments, the argumentative and persuasive
essay that provides research to its support. This argument provides my opinion on the matter,
Technology has affected our social interaction with one another and taken away face to face
communication. (Chavez: Texting without any Emotion) This essay argues the thesis on
whether technology has taken away our social interactions with one another. This essay had to
use the previous exercises to help support and argue the thesis of the essay. The essay provides
effective cited sources to help support the essay, these sources are put on a work cited page. The
work cited is crucial when writing an argumentative essay. The essay provides effective research
on the topic of technology taking humans social interactions with one another. This essay
structure is supported by the progression essays.
Through out these progressions and exercise essays given, it had helped me to improve on
providing enough structure to support the essays that I have written throughout the essays. The

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essays just kept supporting each other and this had helped improve my essay each time. It is
crucial to provide enough support through out the essay in order for the reader to understand and
for it to be considered an effective essay. I learned in the class about ethos, pathos and logos
which I would not have heard about until I took this class. It is crucial to fix up a draft on an
essay because every work needs some kind of improvement which can be helpful to the writer on
improving. Having an essay checked by peers can be crucial before asking for help from a
professor on the essay structure.
I had understood the writing process on writing an effective essay by understanding the
prompt given to me by the professor. It was difficult at first to build up the essays given the way
it is preferred as a college paper but I was able to write the essays as effective as I could. The
class had focused on the different types of writing for the appropriate essays. I was able to
express my opinion on a topics I found to be interesting through my writing.
Furthermore, I have progressed in this class in my writing and I have gained knowledge on
what is needed to write an effective essay. I have learned from Professor Jackie and from the SI
class that have helped improved the essays that were given in the class. The class was interesting
and comfortable when writing an essay. I feel that I have learned and know what is expected of
me as a writer when writing a narrative, rhetorical analysis, or argumentative and persuasive
essay in college English class. The knowledge learned in the class will help me in future classes
and will work to write even better and effective essay than I do today.

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Work Cited
Chavez, Cindy E. That Dora doll Sept. 9, 2015
Chavez, Cindy E. I, Amanda Greene Oct. 27, 2015
Chavez, Cindy E. Texting without any Emotion Nov. 22, 2015