Category: My Journey Final Reflection (Page 1 of 2)

“My Journey” including my narrative as a student in English Class this semester.
Submitted by: Diane Diaz
Exam, ENG 1121
Section 106
5/20/19

Dear professor, as a student with english as a second language, found your class very interesting, it really got my attention. English class are never my favorite because i found it to be really hard to express myself thru writing.My Journey as a student in New York City Tech has been challenging,it is a very important piece of my future as a nurse and has not been easy , but that has make me more stronger. In this class I have learned to listen, to find myself more putting any thought i may have in that moment. I am really starting to understand myself a little more. I also learned how to listen to opinions and also put my thought without being afraid. I learned different types of genres that I can utilize in the future. I learned how to be creative and describe what really is on my mind. Recently I did not pass a very important test for the beginning of my career. I know that failing is not an option and sometimes happens I found the reason, is to make you stronger I would not take this second chance as granted. A lot of my colleagues in this class i found very motivators and it feels great knowing we have a class that we are learning in many different ways. Thank You professor.

Faisal Rahman

ENG 1121- E106

                                                                        My Journey

I have always had to adapt to new surroundings. When I was only five years old, my family moved from our hometown to the capital, Dhaka, of Bangladesh. Until then I have never been out of my hometown of Patuakhali. The capital was nothing like I had ever experienced before. The roads bustling with people, dazzling with night lights and polluted with dust particles were very new to me. I was partially scared but also a little excited.

Before long I found myself sitting for an admission test to get admitted in kindergarten. I was completely mortified during the test. The questions looked alien to what my mom had taught me, and the examiners were rude and ignored when I called for their help. I was a victim of discrimination because of my dialect and not “city-like attitude”. I took the test again next year and passed. But in the classroom, things got bad for me again. I would find people giving me looks and avoiding me.I wanted to make friends and play with them. When I managed to accumulate some courage and approached some kids, I realized the extent of their loathe for me; I was pushed around, and one kid strangled me on top of a bench. Mind you this was happening in presence of a teacher who was sitting in her desk acting like she noticed nothing. I became obsessed with blending in and not be frowned upon. Within a relatively short period of time I got rid of my dialect and regional accent. Fast forward quite a few years, I was a student in the same school studying in grade 10. But now I had friends. Within a year I would get a call from the US embassy, and only a month after that I would find myself in a drastically new setting in New York City. It was like moving to Dhaka all over again. People were different- some very rude but some extremely nice-  infrastructure were different, and so was the climate; It was way too cold for my liking. That was three years from now. I went through the process of acclimation again and am still working on my speaking skills to sound like the people around me. I want to be able to speak fluently and coherently to get my thoughts and opinions across. It has not been easy. But neither was getting the respect of the bullies.

Destiny keeps bringing me to new challenges again and again. New Challenges are not always very pleasant, but my curiosity pushes me to explore and overcome them. Such has been a challenge this year when I walked into the English-1121 class on the first day of spring semester. I was not expecting what the professor uttered- “this is a pilot class where we will be testing a new curriculum”. A part of me wanted to walk out of the class, the curious part wanted to see through the new program. And I’m glad I stayed.

This class has to be one of the most challenging classes I took in college so far. English has never been my strongest subject. All the English classes I have had till I took this class were the same. We would have to write three essays following the same format year after year. Only the length of the essays got bigger as we progressed through our school years. But in this class we were given freedom, no I’m not talking about the first essay. The freedom essay was like the symbolism for the new curriculum. Since, it allowed us to think beyond any limits and write from our heart. Because of the unrestricted requirements, we could do our internal revision and be our own audience. Initially we did not have to write for Prof. Schmerler. We wrote what WE wanted to say to our audience and edited keeping Professor in mind during our external revision. My views on English, as a subject, have changed in this class and I feel like I am not so bad in English like the previous courses made me think. I just needed some wiggle room and let my brain free to do what it is supposed to do- which is to think.

My Journey

Ami-Lyon Monsanto

D439

English 1121

Dear Professor ,

I really enjoyed your class even though i was confused 99.9% of the time and had no idea of what was going on but what i can say is , i really enjoyed your teaching techniques , how you made it comfortable and safe place for everyone to say what was on their mind without being judge. I was really nervous the first day but that all went away when i met David & Caitlin – my besties !!!! those two are always there and i love them for that even though we did get on your nerves sometimes when we laugh – sorry about that.

NOW lets get straight to business.. since my middle school years , i have never met someone who 1. had WONDERFUL taste in music 2. was completely honest with her students and 3. let us know that whatever we said was safe in the room. I am not going to say that everything we did was easy because none of it was but i will say this – my brain did run out of fuel in April. i had no more Gas.

I am not going to write a lot honestly because i don’t want this to feel like this is the end or a “goodbye” because it’s not. But i will say this – Thank You for challenging me in ways i didn’t know how to, pushing us to do our best because you knew we could do it even if we didn’t think so ourselves. As i write this , there may have been a few tears but its okay. i really appreciate you.

Sincerely , the girl who loves her caramel frappes ( Ami-Lyon)

White_Chloe_Final Reflection_439

Jeffers_Emmanuel_D439_Final Reflection

Khondakar Taslim
ENG-1121 Section # E115
Professor Sara Schmerler
“My journey”

Everyone has an aim in life most of the people they have different types of future plan. My aim in life is to become a software engineer. Why I am interested in this field? I love to work with the computer to do something I enjoy learning new things exploring new things such as like industries, languages also I would like to understand how things work and how to solve the problem. I want to do in something fun in my career that’s why I chose this program. I am trying hard to achieve my goal. Just counting the time when I will finish my program to get my degree.
When I started school I was excited and nervous as well. My first semester gave me a hard time because I didn’t get a good schedule with nice professors. So I was upset on my fall semester. This semester I mean spring semester I had a nice schedule I got chance which professors I want to take. On this semester I had two major classes. I was excited how will be these classes and I was thinking maybe I will not understand the course because most of the people were saying it will be hard still I am doing good on those classes. I hope next class will be fine like this semester. I know my major courses will be hard each semester, but I will try my best to accomplish my aim I have to.
In this semester I have learned so many things. Each course was so fun with learning fundamental things. My professors help me where I face problems. Try to help me out which one I did not receive my fall semester. The good professors always matter to me. I think good professor always try to figure out what the student problem how they can teach the student a better way student will learn easily. In my English1121 Professor Schmerler was very nice. I am so lucky because I got a chance to take professor Schmerler. She is knowledgeable to try to understand her students. Professor makes the course very easy and fun. I am not a good writer professor inspired a lot about writing. I think I can write a little better than before. From this class, I learned most of the writing conditions and vocabulary.
In this class, we have 5 units we write so many things. In uniting one we wrote about fear and without ascending letters cure, freedom essay, we had a reading portion as well we read by Laura Carroll called “backpacks v. Briefcase” also “Grammar to Get Things Done”. In uniting two about choose a skill something you good at. We listened to ten types of genre to encounter our life. We were written recipe we had an example of it. We had reading assignment “Shitty First Drafts” by Annie Lamott And “Navigating Genres” By Donald Murray.
In unite 3 we had researched about our genre. I was confused about how I should work on it. I did not understand from where I should start. I had some issues on my genre. Who is the author, audience what is the purpose of it? In uniting 4 professors as to take the research what we did in unit 3 of our skill or interest to do it like digital of our choice (video, interview, or podcast).
This semester was challenging for me. I think this semester went very nicely with learning a lot of things with fun. Just flu so quickly I wish I will accomplish destination quickly.

“My Journey” including my Narrative as a Student in English Class this Semester

Submitted by: _Amina Rahman in lieu of Final Exam, ENG 1121

Section #:  English 1121-E106

Date: 5/21/19

Dear SSchmerler,

This semester been a long journey. I’ve gotten to spend first English class (English 1101 C/D438) which I took two semesters ago. Now I got to spend another semester for this class which is (English 1121-E106). I’ve made the best decision in choosing your class. You made everything fun and made everyone open up (got students to talk). One thing is that you never changed and you always stayed mutual. I love your personality, you’re so bubbly, sweet, outgoing, and very helpful.

To my classmates who were so quite are now opened up to speaking more and reading out loud. I’m proud of each of my classmates who participate and followed prof SSchmerlers way of teaching. You made everything as simple and didn’t let anyone suffer. You made it quite interesting and still got to do research while having fun with it.

To be honest I will forever miss this class. This was my favorite overall class out of all. I’ve been going through a lot of stress this semester and I may say she made it a lot easier and made me read more than before. I used to dislike reading. Because of this class made some interesting topics and followed along which I succeeded the most.

I can’t thank you enough thanks for all the helpful benefits you have taught me. This will defiantly help me in the long run. I used to like English in high school but for some apparent reason I started to drop in college but also picked up where I left off. English will help me dig into more research for my major. But thanks again for making this class special. I will miss you and cherish the moments we shared in class. I will keep you in my prayers.

Sincerely,

[Amina Rahman 5/21/19]

Student: Bilal Javed

Professor: Sarah Schmerler

English 1121-E115

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 My Journey

Dear professor:

            My journey in English class started just as any other class. I was scared at my first day. I have never been good with English. Also, I never understood purpose of standard English essay. I was scared that I might get some professor who is really strict. On my first day I got surprised when I saw class formation as a circle. There was fire chimney video in the back with slightly soothing music in the background. It kind of calmed me down. I lacked confidence. In past classes I would just sit in the back without participating. I used to have fear what if I say something wrong and get criticized. But professor Schmerler sat in the circle with us. Seeing professor sitting with us calmed me down somehow. Our first assignment was to write without using word “the”. At first I thought it would be hard. But, when I got into it; I realized that I was thinking outside the box in writing. It felt good. Being tri-lingual, I have always had trouble with my vocabulary. I had 2 more assignments with restraints of ascending and descending respectively. For some reason these assignment of restraints made me feel confident about my vocabulary. Best thing about class was we all got to share our work with each other willingly and positive comments were encouraging too. This gave me confidence in speaking in all.

Dear professor, our first assignment was traditional essay on freedom. To be honest I have never liked traditional essays. Restraint assignments helped me write a better essay. Then we had to write a reflection. Which was new thing to me. But I liked that too. But professor Schmerler helped us through that too. I slacked off on this point and started to give up on English because of stress in other classes. I thought oh this class was going to be same as any English class. But my assumptions were clearly wrong. I am glad that I followed through.

Unit two of our class was about genres. Our first assignment was to write something that we love but as a recipe. I would be completely honest in the beginning; I was like whatttt! That does not make any sense. After I was done I became really happy. I felt like I had achieved a really high score in a video game. My skill was hiking. Not only I got to share that also, I had done it in a way that I have never done before. This was easy, but what followed it was a little challenging. I had to write it in any other genre. It was the most interesting assignment I had done for English. I wrote my skill as a flow chart. It took me a few tries to perfect that flowchart. Still this assignment was so interesting that I did it with my heart. Professor schmerler and samples from openlab.com helped during this time. By the time I was done I felt that I can write anything into any genre or form as long as I have knowledge about that genre. This assignment felt most useful to me. I am a nursing student being able to write comfortable in charts in necessary skill for me.

Third phase of this class was inquiry based paper; Otherwise known as research paper. I have never liked English research papers. I feel like we have to cruise through some irrelevant books to find just the type of information that our instructor requires. I have never been able to quiet grasp the point of that. I was scared to write research paper. This has been the only reason that I dropped my English 1121 class before. But professor Schmerler explained it in a way that made sense to me. she gave us to write a research paper on your skill but this time put forth concerns of someone else who is professional on your skill. What made it interesting was that it was my skill that I had to use in life. But what hard was reading the arguments of other people on skill I think I am best at. Then, professor Schmerler explained the importance of reading. She said we underestimate power of reading. Sure enough, she was right. As I looked through articles about hiking and its impacts and precautions. I got to learn a lot of new things. For instance, I had no idea that there is a register at beginning of hikes that we had to log in before hiking. In this assignment Jelani, Muaz and professor Schmerler’s work sheet helped a lot.

4^th phase of this class was really interesting. When I got this assignment, I was so glad that I become part of this experimental class. For the first time I was interested to be in English class. We had to transform our research into a 21^st century technological way. Me, Muaz and Jelani choose to do a news cast. Which took a few tries to make. But the skills we had acquired through unit 2 of this class helped through it. Overall my journey in this class was most interesting. This helped me to actually gain some knowledge that was useful in everyday life as well as professional life. I hope they continue this way of teaching. So, other students can get to learn what I have learned. I would recommend professor Schmerler to everyone. She is best English professor that I have come across.

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

Jelani Barro
ENG 1121 – E-115
Instructor: Sarah Schmerler
5/21/2019

My Journey

Dear Professor Schmerler:
As you know, My Journey so far has brought me to be a graduate at our 2019 commencement, on Monday, June 3. This isn’t the end of the road for me as you know, I’m currently on the hunt for a PhD Program to start in the Spring of 2020. The road thus far has been rocky, losing my grandfather in the middle of the semester was not easy. I also extend my condolences to you as, we did share losing a family around the same time; although extended for you, but close for your son. Life has a way of keeping us on our toes and sometimes seems to be very unfair and bitter. I will always try my best to remain optimistic however and always try to look at the brighter side of things, after all, we get to write our own stories in our mind so we might as well make them the best. Here are a few things I would like to share with you about my journey in your class.

The first day was quite interesting, Muaz and I thought we were early sitting and waiting for class to start, tuned out we were in the wrong class, next door across the hall. It wasn’t until a male professor walked in, the I realized something must be wrong. It was, we were in a biology class. We rushed over toy your class and there you were, I thought a very cool looking professor with style, your haircut and clothes gave me the impression of an artist, I was right as you did mention to us that you were. I read on “Rate my Professor that you were an amazing teacher and someone who taught unconventionally, your students loved you and had nothing but positive reviews for you; you were actually the top highest rating professor in your category. I am glad I checked it and found you. You turned out to be everything and more that I read about you from your reviews. You have a way of connecting to our subconscious, so that even when I’m on the subway or at home, your voice and your lessons would pop up in my memory – “If you want to become better writers, you must read”, “Writing is re-writing”, “genre” – Genre was the theme throughout the whole class. I never thought of English as such, I always seemed to compartmentalize every subject in their own category and kept them there. This class has really turned out to be more than I ever expected. When I heard about our new structure of how the class was going to be conducted, I was very excited and really looked forward to participating. I really did enjoy this new structure and it worked well for me. I loved not being constrained by strict guidelines of being graded. I think I learned more this way, because my work wasn’t summed up by some subjective correction, rather I was guided along each unit to reflect on my errors and remember to use correct them on my own, or at least become better at doing so, as I practiced writing within each units.

Two of my main errors are, improving my technical skills with punctuations and my tendency to use a lot tautology in expressing myself. I even recognize that in the way I speak sometimes, maybe that’s the teacher in me. I do repeat myself a lot to make sure I’m being understood, or to express an important thought of mine. I think my writing has improved because of you lessens you’ve taught me, and I will forever be grateful and remember you as my professor, especially when I write and use a semicolon, or just replacing it with a comma. I will also always remember and thank you for your assistance and support along my journey this semester with the valedictorian process. I did get selected, but your support and advice has come to mean more to me than the disappointment I felt, therefore, was an integral part of my speedy recovery. Thank you.

As I wrap up this journey I would like to give a few words of encouragement. Please don’t ever change your style of teaching, it is effective and I wish more students would be so lucky to become a student of yours. I hope you will remain inspired and never become weary to continue to inspire others like myself. You are truly an amazing teacher and we are all truly lucky and blessed to have had the opportunity to be your students. Thank you, I wish you all the best in life, and I will try to remain in touch with you, especially to let you know when I find my PhD program.