Valerie -taiylor williams

April 24 2019

En 102

Ms. Barnes

Things i've learned

This semester was quite different for me personally. In the beginning of the semester, I
hated to admit it but I was lost. Every time I came into the classroom I had a little bit of anxiety
because I was scared because I was not sure if i did my homework that weekend or not. Then i
realized that ms. Barnes is doing this for a reason. She is making us do most of this on our own
for personal growth. She wanted to see that we can do it without having someone hold our hand.
I am greatly appreciative of what she has done for us.
Now my first drafts of my papers were not that good at all. When I wrote some of them I
had no clue or direction on how I should write my paper. For the exploratory essay I think I
rushed it a lot. When I read it again now I say to myself “val what were you thinking?” , but I
really did have no clue what was going on in class. I remember this was the essay that no one in
the class knew that it was due that week except for like two people. My head space with this
class in the early months like January and a little bit of february was completely different than
where it's at now. I never re-worked my essay because our first draft became our final draft.
Overall it was a hot mess for me.
For my annotated bibliography I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I knew
what was going on. I had some mental stability. The annotated bibliography was like the first
part into diving second part into diving into this research essay. It made things more clearer
because I have my information on what I wanted to talk about in my research paper and what
type of research I wanted to use. This annotated bibliography helped a lot because I did not have
to find resources all over again. My first annotated bibliography was the one and only one I did. I
am not sure if she asked for a final draft. The annotated bib was kind of self explained so i'm not
sure.
Now for that last and final paper for this class was the big research paper that everyone
was kind of afraid of. I thought to myself where do i even start, what do I do, and how do I write
this. During this time era corona was happening and the school closed down and we were sent
home. To be honest with you i did not start my research paper until the second to last day it was
due. I just kept procrastinating because I had no clue where to even start. My first try was not as
bad but i could have done so much better. So for the final paper I added in more details and just
corrected a lot of issues.
 Overall I feel that I have grown a lot since the first day of class. I think this class has
taught me not to be on a leash or not to wait for a handout. I'm grateful for the experience and
also sad that this will be the last time i write a paper for Ms. Barnes. Thank you for everything
and have a great rest of the year.