Class Reflection

English has not always been a favorite of mine what so ever. I have never excelled at reading or writing. However, this class has given me the opportunity to explore my writing, improve it, and learn how to organize my thoughts a little better.
With the numerous essays and blogs that the class was assigned to do, I was able to explore different writing styles. I don’t recall ever having to write an argument paper before, and it was fun to be able to research my topic, which I feel very strongly about, and write my thoughts on it. Also, I don’t think that I have had to give a speech on a writing I have done. It was much easier to put together the speech and presentation with having written an essay and having pages of outlines and brainstorming. I think that the research argument paper and presentation will surely help me in my future English classes that I have to take.
I learned that organizing my paper before I write it makes it much easier to do. Having an outline or a paper for brainstorming gives a better pathway to the entire paper. It also made it very easy for me to know where to add more information if I needed to.
With help and constructive criticism from friends and peers I was able to see what I was doing wrong, what things I needed to add in different places, and what I rambled on about. Spell check certainly helped also. However, I do not think that we had nearly enough time to peer edit in class. When we did peer edit, it was only for what seemed like ten minutes. That was defiantly not enough time to read, understand, and edit a long essay. With this lack of time, I received very few comments and corrections on my argument paper, which I could have used more. I believe that if we had more time in class to peer edit I could have corrected many errors on my papers that I am sure I probably missed and could have gotten marked down for.
I really liked writing the first essay, the diagnostic essay. I probably only liked it because it was on a topic that I really like, vacation. That vacation was the best, and having to write that paper brought me back to the warm memories from the cruise. I got to look though pictures, ask my wife about the details I forgot, and wish that it was as nice here as it was in Mexico. It was an easy paper for me to write, because I had previous background knowledge on the topic, which helps tremendously.
All in all, I think that it was a good class and a good fit for me. It was easy to follow along, stay awake, and if I forgot what we did in class I could always look it up online. Having the convenience of being able to read every assignment description was great. Also being able to communicate easily with the professor was a nice thing I haven’t had before in a class.
So between bettering my writing, writing papers I actually could think of topics for, and being able to take things away from this class, made it a good experience for me and I would recommend it to the next student in line for ENG 111.

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