Taraneh Fakhra

Professor Holly Batty

English 113B
10 May, 2016

Reflective Essay
At first, English 113B was a really fun class for me, and I learned so much in this class
with the help of professor. In English 113A I learned some of the stuffs for writing a better essay,
and in this course (113B), we learned the complete rules for writing an essay by using more
proper ways, and have a strong argument. In this course we worked on two of the sweetest
topics, one was animal studies, and one was disability studies. I loved animal studies topic more,
because I love animals and strongly support them in the best way I can, and it really bothers me
to see they are suffering because of us.
Professor Holly Batty, introduced 2 great books which really helped students throughout
the whole semester. One of them was called They say, I say by Gerald Graff, Cathy
Birkenstein, teaches how to have a great essay and how to improve our writings. This book was a
big helper for me when I was stocked for grammars or wanted to have a stronger paragraph for
my essay. It had a lot of good examples of how to start a sentence for each of the lessons and
techniques that lesson was about. The other book was called wings which had the essays of
CSUN students for academic year 2014-2015, we had to read them and we discussed them in
class and related them to the lessons of each class.
In this course we worked on different topics which had different ways of writing and
essay, also we presented on of our essay topic which was disabilities studies and professor
introduced a novel which was called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by

Mark Haddon which was about a brilliant boy with autism, who talked about his everyday life.
For presentation, our group talked about the rights of visual impaired or blind people in
workplaces, and I do not know why, but I some how could put myself in their situation, and
understand what they are going through just because of a little difference. For that essay I learned
how to have a strong thesis to attract the readers and make them read my essay. The topic was
kind of a tough topic because there were not much sources about that topic available, and we had
to really work and read through different articles to find good quotes which can support our
argument. Also learning what does a counterargument do and how to make one was really
helpful because that way I could support my argument more and also persuade my readers much
easier.
The new thing that I had no idea with, and I learned this semester was transition
sentences and words. Before I learn it, I had no clue even about its name, but now I can use them
in my essays so I can attach words and sentences together without having too much little
sentences. Professor Batty really tried to teach us this concept and gave us examples so we can
practice to learn it better. I actually used this lesson in my last assignment to have less short
sentences and also make the argument and the sentences of the paragraph stronger. Also Wings
had a lesson on the transition words and phrases and after reading that chapter and discussing it
in class, we went over sample sentence starters and also tried to come up with sentences and
words to practice that lesson.
English 113B, helped me to improve my writing skills, earn more confidence, and also
believe it or not, helped me to plan my assignments easier and in order. Zoey, our SI teacher
worked hard and really helped all of us, she is a student as well, even harder, she is a graduate
student so everything should be more tough for her, but she would put all her stresses and madnesses and all of the problems that students have away and teach, help, and motivate us so we

could pass this class. I loved this course and always will remember the materials I learned in this
class.