Anguiano 1

Alfonso Anguiano

Prof. Beadle

Eng 115

December 6, 2017

The Takeaway

Throughout my first semester of college, I gained a lot of information, advice, tips and

tricks and feedback that I feel, helped myself improve as a writer. As my first time in approach to

university writing (English 115 ) we composed three projects distributed within the few months.

We worked on Project Space, Project Text and last but not least, Project Media, in that order.

These projects helped me analyze space, texts and interpret media to build a greater point of

view and to seek the true meaning or hidden message within them. With that in mind, I believe

that my first semester in college was a success, helping me improve as a writer and making my

college experience easier for the remainder of my enrollment and California State University

Northridge.

To start off, our first project we completed was Project Space and I feel like the whole

concept and aspect of this really helped me gain a lot of knowledge, improving my skills. Id like

to address that before going into this, I wouldve never thought about the many monstrous

aspects within the space of writing. I wrote my essay about English writing and within that

space, I realized there was a lot more detail and factors that come into play besides a pen, paper

and an idea. This project helped me figure out why I always had trouble writing, and speaking in

class. I discovered that, for myself, anxiety and overthinking were my weak points (monsters)
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that ruined me, and I owe it to project space helping me analyze how these monstrous aspects are

the things we cant see, but we know theyre there. Helping me address my weak points and

helping me conquer them, Project Space helped my performance entirely in English and possibly

in other classes as well.

Next, we move on to Project Text which I believe helped myself improve as a writer by

giving me a different perception and point of view while I watch films or read essays, blogs,

articles and stories to see a different side or even a hidden message that can hold some sort of

relevance and or significance about someone or something. The main point of project text was

to analyze two movies and the greater significance hidden between thick lines. The movies we

analyzed were the original 1954 Gojira and the the newest up to date 2016 Shin Godzilla, and we

sought out the true reference held within the film relating the the horrendous nuclear attacks on

Japan, and how the monster Godzilla is simply a piece of imagery. Now that thats out of the

way, Id like to explain how this helped me improve. Being able to see a new story and meaning,

to see a more important message thats boxed in locked by a code we dont know. Project Text

was the code that I needed to crack open that box and see the importance of just how a fictional

monster teaches us a lesson about the history of Japan. These hidden messages behind closed

doors never did me any good because not a day in my life where I wondered if any science

fiction movie could relate to history. Improving myself as a writer, helping me analyze movies

and text differently to gain new perspective and point of views to grant myself greater credibility

when I write has helped me improved my analyzation skills. My biggest takeaway from this

project was how it taught me the importance how taking an extra look can help me understand
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something much more than I ever could if I simply skimmed through it. Project Text improved

my skills as a writer in most of the ways we used within my class and will help me with further

research in the future.

Last but not least, we have Project Media which I feel was the most effective project that

drastically helped me improve in all aspects as a writer. To get the format out if the way, Project

Media was designed to help me differentiate a relevant and serious social issue in todays society

and compare it to some sort of fictional monster. As we proceeded in the previous discussion

monsters, we compared the monsters to everything but ourselves. With that in mind, we see

others as the monsters and not ourselves, I wrote about how the monster Frankenstein is the most

relatable monster toward racism in today's society. I compared how he was discriminated

because he was different that those who live in the town and I compared this to how people in

today's society dislike foreigners or immigrants living in the United States because they arent

American. What this taught me is how in todays society, we judge foreigners and immigrants

in this country based on stereotypes but yet were creating one for ourselves. As a writer, I think

it's good to interpret all sides of a story to avoid bias and aim toward a good argument. Helping

myself analyze the importance how two completely different subjects or items can somehow

relate or intertwine with each other to create a debate. Keeping this technique in mind, this helps

me improve as a writer by helping me interpret different topics, analyze media and context as

well as the importance of seeking different views on a subject to increase my knowledge and

skills overall as a writer.

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To conclude, Throughout my first semester of college writing, I took away a vast amount

crucial and helpful information that will help me continue to improve as a writer for years to

come. Understanding reading, writing, text, media, and being aware of the spaces in which you

write in, are all important aspect that are best to analyze to help ones self to grow because its

the little things we dont pay attention to that hold the most valuable information.