Gomez_Gisselle_Eng1121-E115_Final Reflection

Gisselle Gomez
New York City College of Technology
Professor S Schmerler
English 1121- E115
May 21, 2019

My Journey

As the end of this semester approaches, I find myself with ever growing willpower and courage to finish this semester strong. I used to have a history of not finishing what I started (academically). My priorities would get wrapped up in real world problems like paying bills, having a social life, and maintaining family relations. I would take the experience of being in a class learning for granted. I didn’t care.

I found this English 2 composition class to be encouraging. Unlike the other (three) English 1121 classes I have taken. One of the main takeaways I learned from Professor Schmerler’s class is: Permission. In this class its about giving yourself the permission to write. Everything is writing. The poetry I wrote in a notebook somewhere about stationary pens is writing. So, am I a writer? Yes. I am a writer. Am I a “good” one? I don’t know. But I know there is always room for improvement. Even though this semester is over, this year is not. Perhaps this will inspire me to write more “pen poems”. Maybe on the train. Or on a plane. Taking the bus. Wherever it is, I know I must (write).
This class helped me with my, not phobia nor fear but, caution of writing. I feel myself growing the confidence to write just for the act of writing. I know that to grow as a writer I must detach myself from the words. Detach from the idea that anything and everything I write must be “good”. The purpose of writing should be for authenticity.

Each unit in our curriculum taught me more about myself as a writer.

Unit 1 started off the semester with constrained in-class writing assignments. Those assignments helped me realize how I should continuously strive to expand my vocabulary. By removing certain letters or words from my writing I had to find new ways to express myself

Unit 2 helped me get out of my comfort zone. I had to take a specific form of writing and transfer the content into another form. This assignment helped me notice the different genres we see in our day-to-day life. Everything is a genre. This unit also reinforced my skills on how to translate information in order to transfer it to another format (and possibly another platform).

Even though Units 3 and 4 were short units, I felt that the skills I used in the previous units helped me get through these last units. The skill of adapting and transferring information from Unit 2 helped me visualize a media format for the multimodal project.

Professor Schmerler – Thank you for a great semester 🙂

Gisselle Gomez