Written Reflection on Critical Thinking and Expression

One thing that I learned very quickly after declaring as a Spanish major, is that you have to
write a lot of papers. I already mentioned some of the difficulties that I’ve have with writing in
the language competence section of my portfolio, but I just want to emphasize that I am not a
gifted writer at all. Especially not gifted at writing proficiently in my second language. I’ve taken
some very difficult classes at BYU, but I must say that I don’t think I ever stressed so much
about any of my other class assignments or tests as much as I ever stressed about some of my
Spanish papers. I found it difficult to find good articles to base my writing on. I didn’t enjoy how
long it took for me to find material that I could actually base my writing on. Being a better
researcher was something that I really had to improve upon during my time at BYU. Which is a
good thing because it is obviously a life-long skill which I will certainly use throughout my life.
Another aspect which I didn’t enjoy about writing, was that someone (my professors) was going
to analyze and critique all the little details about my writing. This was obviously something
which I learned to outgrow over time thankfully.
For this section of my portfolio, I included three different papers which I wrote. All of three of
them were research papers, but I specifically included two as argumentative papers. The first
argumentative paper which I chose to include was a paper in my upper level grammar class in
which I had to analyze a problem within Spanish grammar, and argue my reasoning behind the
problem. This might have been one of the more difficult papers I ever wrote during my time at
BYU. I felt inadequate writing about a problem within a grammar principle which I didn’t fully
understand myself in the first place. I can say that this paper forced me to think outside the
box, and to get creative with my analysis of Spanish grammar. The second paper which I
included was about the Spanish Inquisition. In this paper I basically argued for the reasons
which I thought the Spanish Inquisition was morally wrong, and used sources to back my
reasoning.
For my research paper, I included a paper which I wrote on the Latin American novel, “El
coronel no tiene quien le escribe”. This was also a difficult task for me to fulfill, because I didn’t
understand how to analyze a specific aspect of the novel, and create a 5 page paper out of it. I
had to find sources to help me find interesting aspects within the novel, and expound upon
them in my writing.
I’m not exactly sure if I will ever have to do extensive research and writing (in Spanish) like this
in my life or in my future career, but I’m grateful for the growth and experience that working on
these papers gave me. I know that I will be able to perform similar tasks in the future if it is
asked of me, because of the skills I gained as here as a Spanish major.