Stammen 1

Alex Stammen
English 101H
Professor McKeever
10 December 2015
Word Count: 608
Reflection
From the beginning of the semester I was originally put in English 1010. I ended up
talking to my teacher, Professor McKeever, he believed in me, and put me in his English 101H
class. I found that this class has challenged my abilities through learning, growth, and
development as a writer.
Through learning, I have grown into a better writer in this class. Each essay was very
different from one another, and there were so many topics to choose from. With having so many
topics to choose from, I found it hard to only choose one. These werent topics that would bore
most kids, the topics are modern day topics that effect students like you and me. Having that
said, I enjoyed doing research on a topic that I liked, and found that it was not too hard to write
because I was writing about a topic that interested myself. Now its at the end of the semester,
writing my final paper, and I have realized through learning I have furthered myself in writing
essays. This will help me in the long run when I have to write a paper or report for later classes
or even my future job.
In accordance with learning, growth has also challenged my abilities to become a better
writer. From graduating from St. Edward High School, I felt pretty confident in my English and

Stammen 2
writing abilities. My teacher felt I had a pretty good background coming from where I came
from, so he placed me in honors. From the beginning to the end of the semester I found that my
writing abilities had grown little by little throughout each essay assignment. Smarthinking helped
me a lot with each essay also. The tutors not only helped me correct grammatical mistakes, but
helped me expand on key points and helped with weirdly worded phrases that I had written. I
have to give a lot of credit to Smarthinking because it allowed me to grow and advance in my
writing abilities.
Through learning and growth, my development as a writer has also furthered my writing
abilities. Each essay assignment that I wrote pushed me to develop into a better writer. In the
beginning of the semester I thought oh geese 500 words minimum per essay, thats going to be
really hard. After the first few essays I realized writing 500 words per essay wasnt as bad as I
thought. For certain essays, I found myself passing the word minimum by a lot. With such topics
of my interest, I had a lot to say about the topic, so the writing process was not a struggle for me,
it felt like a breeze for some. A lot of the times once I started to type away, I wouldnt realize
how fast I could say what I wanted to say and put it down on paper. By the time I stopped to
think about how much more, I was basically finished or very close to being done. Through the
assignments it has advanced my development as a writer.
Through learning, growth, and development, I have expanded and even furthered my
writing abilities. This class has really helped me in a huge way just by a little motivation by
having good topics to choose from and tweaking little or bad habits I had through Smarthinking.
Tutors. Each assignment advanced and pushed my writing abilities week by week resulting in a
better improved writer prepared for whatever I have to write in the future such as an essay for
another class or even a work report.