Final reflection
by:Julio Lopez
At the beginning of my second semester at City Tech, I wasn’t off to a great start. Transitioning from being a high school student, I wasn’t used to the tremendous long winter break. Having to transition back into work mode and being used to not doing anything for a whole month made my learning experience a little challenging, not only for my English class but all my other classes. Let’s focus on this English course and how my growth and development came across. One of our first assignments was the time capsule; I realized I had a lot of work to do. Coming from the “hood,” I’m used to communicating daily with slang. As I was writing my time capsule, I wrote, “Truly what I want us to accomplish is, not only that A we’re gonna work hard for.” I thought using the word “gonna” was completely fine until I saw the grade I received and the positive feedback given by my professor. Although I thought I did an excellent job on my time capsule, seeing the status I got took away some motivation I had to improve and keep on trying. That’s until I emailed my professor and had a fantastic conversation about how we shouldn’t let one bad grade determine the outcome of our future. I once again gained the enthusiasm to try my best and give 100% to all my assignments. A tool that got me through the semester was Grammarly. Thanks to this beautiful, well-built website, my overall growth as a reader, writer, and scholar improved quicker. We are all human, and we all make mistakes.
I made my fair share of errors myself, such as Letting assignments pile up. This course made me realize that consistency is crucial and the answer to success. I tried my best to turn everything in on time. I realized that when I let all my work stack up, It mentally exhausted me and put me in a mood to give up, and I wouldn’t call it depression; just not an emotion where I would want to get up from bed and do anything productive. Then came our first major assignment for the class, the Educational Narrative. I enjoyed writing this workpiece. Thanks to this writing brought back a time in my life when I learned an important lesson that still, to this day, I live by; I said, “English comes in many different forms, making it a new language others can communicate.” Once I completed my essay, I later thought I had learned a more important lesson: leadership and communication.
Leadership and communication are huge lessons that everyone should develop over time. Leading a team and communicating well with others will open many doors for me. For example, Once I obtain a career for myself, I must be able to lead a team and give orders to my co-workers for a smooth business to run smoothly. Overall, it helps you create a bond with others, helping you get along with your team and much bigger like your community. When it comes to being an author, I will use my communication skills to help get my thoughts across to my audience and everyone who comes across my writing work.
Communication reminds me of a particular article that we have read. “Annoying ways people use sources,” by Kyle D Stedman, compared sloppy writing to slow drivers and showed me how constancy is vital, as I mentioned earlier. Sloppy writing and failing to introduce my sources is like switching lanes on the freeway with no singles; it’s unpredictable. It creates accidents. Taking the article into consideration and applying what it taught me in my writing. Our third unit for the class began, and we had to write an annotated bibliography. The bibliography was a significant assignment because it would teach us critical writing techniques such as conducting research, properly citing sources, and properly learning how to combine everything into our writing for a smooth transition. At first, I struggled a lot trying to stay consistent with my writing and when it came down to turning in work. I knew how to paste a quotation into my piece when it came to my writing, but I didn’t know how to expand the quote correctly. I couldn’t stay consistent with creating that smooth reading for my readers, but thanks to Kyle D Stedman played a role in improving my consistency and growth as an author.
How could I use what I learn in my daily life? Consistency is another primary skill we must all strengthen. When I learned to become consistent, I put more effort into everything. For example, I took learning to be compatible with quotations and used it to be compatible in my daily life. I created a schedule; a schedule made my days go by smoother, just like using my turn signals to avoid crashing. I avoided any obstructions that came my way. I will use this significant skill throughout the remaining learning experience.
One thing I didn’t enjoy doing at the beginning of this course was having to respond to classmates’ work. As we went along the class, I began to see why we responded to each other; it was a method to give each other feedback on how to improve as students and authors. I thank my classmates and professor for all the constructive feedback; It was a fun learning experience that helped me gain confidence. I will apply that confidence throughout my school years and say, “you got this!” Not only did I watch my growth and development, but I also watched my team grow with me.
Overall I enjoyed this course so much. I’ll admit it wasn’t a smooth ride all the time, but I didn’t take each assignment as just some work I had to complete for a grade; I took those assignments as lessons. I’m taking everything I learned to improve my writing and everything around me. In my time capsule, I wrote, “Not only that A we’re gonna work hard for, but also to take what we learned in this course and apply it into the outside world in a way where it teaches others.” I will stay true to my words and help others.
