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Category: Portfolio & Reflection (Page 1 of 10)

draft of final reflection

Even though the semester wasn’t how I imagined it to be, being online and not being surrounded by new faces, I did end up enjoying it. Only downsides was being stuck inside for most of the day and by the time my classes end and my homework is done I’m too lazy to go out or do anything. The days I did have time I would go work and that would take up the rest of my day. When work wasn’t an option, and my homework was all done, I would find myself watching YouTube, anime, Netflix series, or catching up with friends. I did go out a few times during quarantine with my friends and we all social distanced and kept our masks on. Other than that think we can all agree that the first semester was definitely not how we expected it to be with these zooms and blackboard conferences, with half the class either asleep during lectures or being too shy to talk. Besides all that, it wasn’t as bad as some people might say especially since I can literally wake up 2 minutes before my class and login and listen to the lecture. For English class, I learned a lot more about my interests and hobbies throughout this writing course because of the freedom I had in writing about things that actually mattered to me.

Starting English class early in the semester, I hated it. Ive always never enjoyed English class because we were always reading or writing about things that I had no interest in. The work I was doing early in the semester is 1/4th the type of work I’m putting out now. The reason I say this is because I was still learning how to create better, more quality pieces of work. I was getting taught to think deeper and write more, not just writing more words but actually writing more. Adding more information and detail especially since I already use words in my day to day life. “I use words to describe my feelings, to tell people about how much they mean to me, and to spread positivity to everyone around me, (Hamood, How to read like a writer).”  I already can use my words to add very descriptive detail in other parts of my life so I learned to channel it in my writing now as well. To go that extra step, and go beyond. This ultimately would elevate my writing from a solid 6 to a super solid 8.

As we changed genres, I found myself to enjoy the unit 2/3 more than unit 1. And the reason I found those two units to be enjoyable is because we were all focusing on something that really bothered or defined us as individuals. We were in control of picking what to write about. I enjoyed this very much because I chose Video games and decided to highlight on the positives to gaming which is very rarely mentioned, even though the crowd for playing video games is growing dramatically larger day by day with more people playing and using video games as a way to coupe with anxiety, depression, and also help them with improving several cognitive functions. Also while being able to write what I liked my thinking was far more diverse and expressive. I found myself writing way better and easier and making sense with the point I was trying to get across. This ultimately made me a happier writer and a better writer. “Growing up video games have always been a big part of who I am. when I was in elementary school I had a PSP and I used to play ratchet and clank, burnout, ape escape, metal gear solid, etc. “These games were all super fun to me and I enjoyed them because all my my friends around me also enjoyed them and played them, (Hamood, Unit 2 Final Assignment).”

The few things that were challenging for me while writing my assignments and essays were firstly the word minimum. I had a had time meeting the word minimum because I felt as if I completed the assignment with the amount of words I already had which was usually a little less than the required amount. This caused my grade to suffer partially. I also didn’t wanna just add anything else or more because I felt like I’d be repeating myself over and over and the reader wouldn’t enjoy reading what I had to say. Another thing I had trouble with was finding the right thing to say and wording it correctly to entertain the reader and make him want to read more and enjoy what exactly he’s reading. This was an issue because I would often overthink what I wanna say or the point I’m trying to get across. This would often lead me to be simple and lead my analysis to not be as detailed and thorough as it should be. One example of this is, “Gaming has been proven to positivity effect the users mood and help with depression, anxiety, and provide relaxation from the stressful life that the user has and can be easy and quick to access, (Hamood, Unit 2 essay). This analysis wasn’t very thorough and didn’t really analyze what the quote was saying. This caused the paragraph to not be as great as it should’ve been. This is something I find myself still struggling with but attempting to get better at day by day. Lastly I struggled with timing and spacing out the work correctly. Often times id find myself trying to complete the assignment the day of and that causes my work to not come out as great as it could’ve been if I were to give myself more time on the assignments and not choose to do it the day it was due. What caused me to leave them last minute wasn’t even procrastination but the fact I had many other assignments to do, work, and plenty of other things on my plate to take care of at once.

Draft of final reflection

Living during this unprecedented time is really hard and stressful for us younger students. We have never experienced an online class before COVID-19. During this term, I have learned a lot about myself as a reader. As a reader, I found out that I’m into fictional stories,Literature, etc. As a writer, I understand the feeling toward writing when an author’s writing is really amazing. In writing you get to express how you feel what you are thinking and in a blind way of communicating with your writer. These feelings make you wanna write more and let people explore what you have in your mind. In this semester I got to improve my writing skills and my grammars and ways to target my audience and make them understand my perspective. Not only that in this term I got to learn new ways to write and use sources and how to keep my reader interested in my text. This semester I started to read more books than I was reading before. I slowly figured out that I love reading but I just never tried. The work I did early in the semester was lighter than the work I’m doing. Well, there are few ways to contrast my work. One way would be in the early semester. I wouldn’t think so much about my work because it was pretty light and there isn’t much work to do. As of now, whenever I have an  assignment it takes a lot of time to put it all together and I have to do a lot of research etc to finish up my assignment. In a simple way, the work got heavier and it takes more time and thinking to do it now than before. My favorite assignment would be in unit 1-Education. It’s my favorite assignment because in this unit we got to talk about education and ways we can change it. We also got to talk about our personal experience with school and things that shaped our perspective toward school. In this unit we got to open up about how we feel toward school and things that we went through. Also another one of my favorite assignments would be in unit 3. It’s my most favorite because we got to choose our own topic and talk about it. These are the topics that we needed to address and find a solution for it and answer to your curiosity. I always was curious about police brutality and this topic helped me to find my answer to it and ways to improve this matter. Assignments aren’t just work that you complete and submit it. Every assignment teaches you something and gives you new ideas

Final Portfolio

Overall the projects over this semester was fun whilst also being informative in helping me learn and grow as a writer.  Overall, in reviewing all the projects I have submitted within Units 1, 2, and 3, I am fairly glad with the work I have submitted. In my Unit 1 assignment, I believe I was able to clearly display who I am as a person as well as connect it personally to me whilst remaining subjective to the topic. Within my Unit 2 assignment, I am fairly proud of the paper that I provided due to the fact that it was related to something that makes me happy and I was genuinely interested to research and write about the topic. Within Unit 3, I was happy to have some creativity in making and submitting the project all whilst staying along the topic and making sure to cover all the facts and necessary requirements of the piece.

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