Written Reflection on Critical Thinking and Expression:

For the first section I chose to include two Argumentative papers that I wrote for a
Spanish class I took here at BYU. One of the requirements was that the paper defended a
thesis/claim. I feel that these two essays fulfill that requirement nicely because a major focus of
this class was to develop a good thesis before writing an essay. Then, as both the requirements
for this artifact state and my papers required, each thesis is backed up with evidence that
demonstrates and understanding of multiple perspectives and is targeted at an academic
audience. This class was extremely similar to an English 101 class I took at a community
college, but in Spanish. It taught the basic building blocks for a good essay and did not go easy
on grammatical usage of the language or ability to persuasively argue a topic with evidence.
Critical Thinking and Expression is a valuable skill to have in any language, and figuring out
how to transfer over the skills I have in order to write an argumentative paper in Spanish
certainly expanded my Critical Thinking and Expression skills.
The second section I included a Research Paper that I wrote for a Spanish Linguistics
class I took here at BYU. The paper used a variety of sources and sought to explain Italianisms
found in the Spanish around Rio de la Plata. It included a literature review and summarized my
findings. The target was an academic audience and the usage of the language sought to achieve
that same level. The opportunity to write a research paper in Spanish involved a variety of
critical thinking and expression skills, such as the ability to sort through the information and
academic documents written in Spanish in order to properly summarize and analyze them.
Because of this I feel that this essay fulfills the requirements for this artifact.
Although none of these essays were written at the same level as would be expected for
similar documents written by a native speaker, I believe that the skills developed through
learning and writing them are positive signs of the growth of my critical thinking and expression
through the Spanish language. Even if what I initially write is less than perfect, I have developed
a general understanding of how things should be written and will be able to continuously strive
to achieve that level in my personal and professional use of the language.
Although I do not plan to go to graduate school, especially not for Spanish, I believe that
the skills acquired will allow me to continue developing critical thinking skills in both Spanish,
English, and possibly other languages I attempt to learn. It is likely that I will to need to
understand complicated documents in my professional work, and possible that those documents
will be in Spanish. I plan to use these skills to further my career and also to better express myself
in the area of the Church when preparing lessons or talks for the local Spanish Branch back
home.