REFLECTION

Briana Urena

Transitioning from high school to college was a big change that I thought I was ready for but was later proved wrong. Throughout my highschool career, I wasn’t exactly the best writer nor did I really put 100% in my writing. I knew this course was a requirement for my major and I knew that unlike high school I couldn’t just slack off. In order to improve my writing, I had to change my ways and manage my time wisely in really perfecting my craft. This class taught me that you don’t need to be a good student in order to be a good writer. I learned how to take criticism, use my professor and peers’ feedback, how to read like a writer, and annotate. All these skills have helped me outside of school and in other classes. For example, with these skills I have learned how to write professional emails, write lab reports, and even understand my books from a different point of view. 

In my earlier work, I struggled with pacing and time management. At the end of an essay, I would rush and try to get it over with. In my unit one project “Hate” I explained how school affected my self esteem and my relationship with my parents. In the 2nd to last paragraph I went from “It was ruining my relationship with my parents” to “As I’ve gotten older I learned that grades don’t define me as a person.” Looking back at it I see how this caused my audience to get confused and wonder “how did we get here?” or “there’s something missing”. I learned that this could have been avoided if I had taken the time to reread my work and asked my friends or peers’ for their perspectives on it. I should have made sure everything made sense for my audience. I had a bad habit of waiting till the last minute to write my essays and rush through it. I realized this caused me to not write to my full potential and make my essays seem not completely done and sloppy. I knew after getting this criticism from my professor, I had to change my ways. Throughout the semester, I’ve learned that drafting, time management, and checking my work is very important. I now proof read everything out loud and think about my audience when I write. If anything is confusing or just not adding up, I ask my professor’s or peer’s for feedback. My classmates and I did a lot of group revisions and helped each other with our writings during class time. I learned that taking my time and getting my classmates’ opinions was super helpful and helped my work look more professional and well written.

My favorite assignment this semester was our unit 2 which was the annotated bibliography. In the annotated bibliography we were assigned to pick a topic we felt strongly about and share it with the class. Using my professor’s feedback from unit 1, I felt more confident and knew what I could do to make my Unit 2 better. First, I drafted my intro, body paragraphs, and conclusion weeks before the assignment was due. By doing this I changed things that didn’t get my message across, got people’s thoughts and opinions, and did lots of research. This helped me tremendously! I wasn’t rushing nor procrastinating hours before the assignment was due. Not only was I less stressed doing this project, I was actually having fun. During highschool, I was never able to research a topic I was actually interested in. This led me to have no motivation and be bored half the time. Doing research on a topic I was very passionate about, made me realize how good my essays can be when I put time and hard work into it. Using my Unit 2 project, I was able to inform people on the true horrors of the pet store trades. Knowing that I was able to spread a message, made me feel like I was making a change and spreading awareness. I even used my research to inform people outside of school and on the internet. I remember writing this in my artist statement “The more people know about the abuse, the more people will stop supporting pet store chains and animal mills. This will help so much. In order to stop this, we need to work together, and end the buying of pets in pet stores.” By doing this project, I think I’m closer to my goal, informing people on why pet stores shouldn’t be trusted and how as a community we can help. My video and my annotated bibliography can help spread this message. 

The class and I were assigned to read an article called “How to read like a writer” by Mike Bunn and this changed my perspective on reading a lot. I realized that everyone has the ability to become a good writer. Throughout our everyday lives, we are always writing, texting, or reading even when we don’t really realize it. But do we ever really stop and analyze a book or our writing and ask ourselves “how can I improve?” or “why did the author write this? what was their purpose?” I have read a lot of romance novels and realized that I never really read like a writer. I never asked myself while reading, if the author didn’t write this would I still like it? or how can I adopt similar techniques in my own writing? While reading this article I’ve learned many ways on how I can improve my writing while reading. There are important connections between reading and writing and how reading in a particular way could also make me a better writer. On a particular blog I posted named “HW Sep 6” I explained how “the goal is to consider the choices the author made and the techniques they used, and decide whether I want to make the same choices in my own writing or use the same techniques”. When I am reading, I need to see how something was constructed so that I can construct something similar myself. 

After reading this article, I’ve learned so many ways on how to improve my writing. I feel way more confident now for my college essays and how I can improve and work on my mistakes as a writer. One of the many helpful tips I learned was that all writing can be improved! Think about how a published text would be different, maybe even better, if the author had made different choices in their writing and how It’s always a possibility that I can be faced with similar choices in my own work. Also I need to ask myself when I’m reading, “what’s the author’s purpose for this piece of writing?”, “who is the intended audience?”, and “are you going to write something like this yourself?”

In conclusion, this ELA course helped me with skills that are extremely important for jobs, schools, reading, and more. I learned that in order to improve, I had to put my 100% in everything. By doing this, I got better results in my writing and classwork. When I started this ELA  course, I didn’t know how to manage my time or even annotate properly. But by working with my professor and my peers, I was able to achieve my writing and reading goals. Every project we did in class, I improved more and more by using what was given to me and listening to constructive criticism. Now that I know how to read like a writer, I am able to understand poems, speeches, and books more. Even the annotation process is easier. With the research I’ve done for Unit 2, I can now teach other people on the topic and use the skills I’ve learned to write more annotated bibliographies in the future.