Betancourth 1

Jonathan Betancourth
Professor Jon Beadle
English 113B
11 May 2016
Reflection
English courses were never my strong point in academics. I always struggled on starting
an essay because I wouldnt know how or where to start. CSUN has given me an opportunity to
improve my writing skills so I could be ready to write college level work for next semesters to
come. I learned that writing an essay has a process. You can not just write a well developed essay
the night before it is due. I learned you must write multiple drafts, have peers edit your work, and
most importantly the longest step of writing a paper revising and polishing it. I always believed
writing the paper itself was the longest step but I learned its the revision part. English 113B has
improved my writing skills and made a better write from the start. A key concept I learned from
the first weeks is if I can write about rock, I can write about anything. In English 113B I had two
essays, Project Space and Project Text, after revising both my essays I can confidently state Im a
better writer from the start of the semester. With developing and learning new skills on both
projects my writing has improved and my portfolio is an evidence for that. I use to believe
English courses were my weak points in academics but Im confident I can write in a college
level and is a strong point now in my academics.
Project Space was my first progression on becoming a better writer, I was assign to
reflect on my own culture identity and how it operates in a different space. I choose soccer
culture because I was raised in a household were soccer was always on the TV and the whole
family around the TV watching the soccer match. I argued that soccer culture has made me the

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person Im today striving to become successful. But in my essay I reflected to much on my essay
rather than adding personal experience or why all this important and matters in my life. I talked
about how I learned that many different people call the soccer differently but I never said why
this important to me. Although I was adding my personal experience I was not letting my
audience know why it was important. I struggle to point out why seeing people calling soccer a
different term was important to how I practice my culture. But in my revise essay I was able to
say it is important because it shows me the importance of space and how in different space my
culture can be done or in this case called differently. In my revise essay I added this, This is
important because it shows the value of space in my culture and how it affected me to think I was
doing my culture wrong but what I essentially learned is in different spaces the same culture we
are apart of can be approached differently. Here I let my audience know why this is important
because I thought I was practicing my culture wrong but I was actually learning the importance
of space.
Also in project space I would struggle to do more with my sources to support my essays.
I would not explore the connection and relate it back to my personal experiences. I used a quote
from Alisa Valdez- Rodriquez article, My Hips, My Caderas about her experience of switching
between two worlds but I did not relate this to my own experience which weaken my own
argument and confuse my audience. But in my revise essay I added this saying, This relates to
my own experience because when I want to switch from my American culture to my Latino
culture and I call the game Futbol instead of Soccer depending in the space Im in. I let the
audience know how it relates to a personal experience in which I can represent other cultures Im
part of such as American and Latino culture into my soccer culture depending the space Im in.

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In Project Text was my next progression to becoming a better write in which I was
assigned to analytical make an argument on the novel Every Day. I chose to write about love and
how love is a prime factor that motivates the actions we make everyday. Unfortunately, my
argument was considering to be on the surface. I was summarizing to much on the novel than
analyzing it as evidence on my novel. In the introduction I had sentence stating, A is in Justins
body and meets Rhiannon which is Justins girlfriend. What is it about the moment you fall in
loveHow can a small measure of time contain such enormity? This was making my
introduction weak because I needed to save the summarization and quotes for later in the essay
and introducing my own argument. I added this to my introduction instead, A starts to
jeopardize the bodies he/she occupies to be with Rhiannon because A has fallen in love with her.
We see that love becomes a motivator for A to commit selfish acts of endangering the bodies
he/she is in. Now instead of summarizing from the novel Im expanding on my own argument.
A huge problem I had with Project text was knowing the difference between summarizing and
analyzing text. On my Seventh paragraph in my essay I talked about Day 5999 which was the
day A was in Nathans body. I basically summarized what happen in that chapter then add why it
matter. I was not thinking of the bigger picture of that day such as why As action was wrong that
day and what were his reason and where they acceptable? I added this context in my revise essay
saying, This matter because we see the first rebellious act is lying to Nathans parent will he
will be tonight without thinking if something were to happen to Nathan his parents would not be
able to find him and A reason is the love towards Rhiannon and wanting to be with her. Those
reasons are not acceptable because A knows a real relationship with Rhiannon is not possible but
A still insists while endangering the bodies he/she occupies. A is wrong for doing that and
wouldnt endanger the bodies he/she in if it werent for love the prime motivator of his/her

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actions. Now instead of just summarizing what happen in the text Im analyzing why it matters,
why it is important and how this is relevant to my own argument.
In conclusion I have grown improvement in becoming a better writer after completing
English 113B. My two progression from the course have became stronger essays after my
revision and learning from the mistakes I made in the past with them. The only way to become a
better writing is writing more and learning from your mistakes. I have given every amount effort
in this course to approach a university writing level. My portfolio is evidence of my development
of becoming a better writer.