Kayla Pena

Tyson Ward

English Honors

December 20, 2018

 

Self-Reflection

In this class I have actually tried to rebuild my previous writing habits. I was never really taught how to write essays so his class was a challenge for me. I made sure to take advantage of my professors’ willingness to meet and tried to absorb all the comments he gave me during our meetings. I genuinely wanted to learn to fix my writing. In the beginning of the semester. Remember our professor going over how we can work on our writing processes. I normally would wait for the night before to write my papers for school, but in this class, I learned that I should give myself time. I enjoyed writing my paper a week or two before it was due so I had time to research, outline, draft, meet for comments, and finalize my paper. I think learning this writing process was the biggest thing I got out of this semester.

The brainstorming piece always remained the most difficult part for me. These assignments, especially the definition assignment, were so open for creativity. Being creative is hard for me. When there are such a limited number of boundaries I don’t know how to act. This is why the narrative essay was my least favorite. It had such a broad number of topics I could choose from.

The argumentative essay was my favorite because it was more formatted and I could create a solid outline for how I wanted to go about my paper. I approached it like a puzzle. I laid out all of my subject’s opinions and had to find a way to twist them and find counterarguments to them.  It was a challenging task, but one I knew I could tackle through research rather than my own creativity.

At first for the definition assignment I didn’t understand what was being asked of me, but once I talked with classmates and chose my topic I was on a roll. One source would lead me to another source and I had to catch myself from going on tangents that were too farfetched. I wish I gave this essay more time. It was the one essay that I didn’t stick to a good planning schedule.

I also reformed my writing style and figured out how important smooth transitions were to making an essay seem flawless. I really enjoyed this class this semester as it forced me to tap into my inner creativity and to come out of my writing comfort zone.