Hannah Selders

English 101: Written Communication I

Dr. Elizabeth Cuddy

Project #4: Reflection Essay

Written Communication I Reflection Essay

In high school, English had always been a subject where we either read boring books or

listened to a teacher teach topics that we already learned the year before. Although things began

to change during my senior year, the concepts we were learning were of no interest to me. It was

not until I entered my first college English course that I began to have an interest in English and

writing.

Written Communication I was a class that changed the way I thought about literature and

approached writing papers. In high school, I had a way of starting papers late and barely looking

over them. Although I knew these things existed, this class has taught me how to outline, rough

draft, and review in a timely and organized manner. My instructor, Dr. Cuddy introduced me to

“Peer Critique”, this was a way for our peers to review and give feedback on our writings and

projects before submitting them. Seeing other students read my work and give positive critique,

made me feel more confident in my writing no matter the end grade.

Throughout learning how to write essays many concepts were easy and some that were

more difficult. Learning how to analyze articles, discuss them, and properly structure essays was
the beginning of my learning journey. In the first couple of weeks, we were given multiple close

readings assignments and our first diagnostic essay. One of the first reading assignments was

Kiki Petrosino’s essay “Literacy Narrative”. After reading the essay, I had an idea that the next

class would consist of my professor asking individuals boring questions about specific things in

the text. To my surprise, my professor did the complete opposite, Dr. Cuddy opened the

discussion and allowed anyone to begin sharing their ideas with the class, this started intellectual

conversations and built various relationships too.

Our first diagnostic essay assigned was a Literacy Narrative. We were asked to consider a

moment in our lives when the act of reading or writing had a profound impact on us. Coming

from a high school where we never really wrote essays, I was lucky enough to have a family that

helped me write my first book. It was hard for me to begin writing the first essay simply because

I did not have much experience with writing. Our second writing project was a definition essay.

In this essay, we were asked to write about a single word in the Oxford English Dictionary and

elaborate on the meaning. Learning how to use references and citing helped me write my

definition essay and gave me the tools needed to get a better understanding of where words were

originated and how the meanings changed over time. Our last writing project was a rhetorical

analysis. This project was the hardest for me not because of what it was asking us to do, but

more of how we were to go about completing the essay. We were asked to write an

argumentative analysis of an article or editorial from a newspaper or newsmagazine that we

either strongly agreed or disagreed with. After generating many ideas of what could possibly be

my essay topic and still being confused about how to take the information from the article and

turn it into an essay, I had a meeting with Dr. Cuddy and she was able to guide me in the right
direction for the essay. Not only did she do this for me, but she also did it for every single person

in her English course.

A major part of why I was able to learn so much in Written Communication I, was

because I had a fabulous professor. Dr. Cuddy proved herself to be different from all other

professors because she taught from her heart. She was always patient and never allowed any of

us to give up on projects, or homework assignments. Although many didn’t talk a lot in my class,

including me, I still felt like she knew who I was as an individual student and writer. She took

her time to deliver every concept and always answered questions. After taking the Written

Communication I course with Dr. Cuddy, I am more than excited to begin my journey in Written

Communication II and bring all of the knowledge she taught along with me. Let’s just hope my

experience is just as great as this one was.