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​ Ian Olmedo

​ English 1301-115

​ Prof. Sharity Nelson

​ 11 Dec. 2023

​ Overview Reflection of ENGL 1301

My first semester as a University student at Texas A&M International was great. I

enjoyed all my classes, professors, and friends. A major strategy I learned in my first English

class (ENGL 1301) was that the writing process takes a lot of time. I only mention this as my

largest learning experience because I only wrote 2 drafts and my final draft before college.

Professor Nelson’s class had a classmate, and I present about “Shity First Drafts” by

Anne Lamott. This not only taught me but other students taking that class that the majority of

first drafts suck. Not even the best writters will pop out a perfect story on their first try. This

presentation taught me that it is okay to write everything I could think of first and then revisit

and weedout the unnecessary parts later. This writing process definitely gave me confidence in

my English class, where I gained a new mindset from writing and submitting my work to having

to write, eliminate, revise, and submit my work. This brought me from two drafts and a final to

three or even four drafts on one essay before submitting my final draft.

This new writing process came in handy for other classes, such as my Business, Biology,

and Math classes, where I had to write rich descriptions of formulas, theories, and even large

corporations. I, with more of my classmates from my Business Principles class, wrote our

breakdown of a large corporation, I was able to translate a lot of the strategies I learned in

English to nitpick every key idea and product that Target has to offer. Breaking down their
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accounting, management, and supply. This first semester of English 1301 has helped me

recognize that good writing takes many tries and a lot of time.

Moving from my confidence of taking my time and revisiting my work, all essays

assigned this semester were writing analyses. This meant I had to learn about analysis throughout

this first semester of English, and I was able to do so with the help of an assignment/ quiz that I

had. Utilizing the book, “Everyone’s an Author” by Andrea Lunsford, Michal Brody, Lisa Ede,

etc. Chapter 15 reading assignment and quiz allowed me to pin down what writing analysis was.

Titled “Let’s Take a Closer Look,” chapter fifteen mentions the analysis in daily life from

picking out clothes in the morning due to the weather and, of course, in class. Analysis is the

deconstruction of an artifact and finding the key factors that make it special and/or unique.

Determining if a detail is something to put in or leave out is completely up to what writing is

taking place, but the more that can be broken down and detailed, the better. I like to think of this

as having to explain something to a little kid who has no clue as to what is happening. I have to

mention colors, features, faces, and clothes, as I did in all of my Analysis Essays this first

semester.

Another activity that helped me analyse my work would be OWL Purdue Self-Edditing

Workshop. Reading through the steps and path needed to ensure that my writing was up to

standards of a university was key, as having to work on my worn paper was proving to be

challenging. Throughout utilizing these assignments and resources provided to me, I was able to

find that analysis is simply a breakdown of all aspects of an artifact or idea into words or in my

case, writing. I had to separate meanings further than what was on paper and incorporate what

would be important or what could be utilized somewhere else.

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From analyzing work to create my own take on an artifact to having to revise and break

apart my own writing as a final assignment in my Portfolio for English 1301. While revising one

of my essays, I was able to see what strategies I did properly and what I did not do properly. I

chose to revise an essay for which I got my highest grade, my Visual Analysis Essay. While it

was the essay for which I got the best grade, I decided to revise it to understand what an A+

essay would look like so that I could carry the work I did for that essay into future writing

assignments. I knew that I took the longest time possible to properly analyze and separate the

image and turn it into words with the goal of being able to read my paper to someone who can

not see or maybe has their eyes covered. This strategy of wringing out the most descriptive

evidence I could include while still foreshadowing events that may take place and hinting to the

show that my image represented.

Leading me to make the most important changes to my topic sentence as my Professor

left feedback on that as to what I could improve. From just mentioning the people, the

background, and the environment justly to not give any information away, my professor, through

adding more description early on, would be more impelling to have my reader wanting more of

my writing. I made that adjustment and added the detail of the worn-down characters and their

destroyed city that they are standing in front of, getting ready to face. Other changes that I made

were grammatical errors I had submitted my final draft with. As I have mentioned earlier in this

paragraph I took as long as I could break this artifact apart, and I submitted it with one last

overlook. I missed a couple of words and phrases but all of which I have fixed in order to make

my Essay II the best Essay I wrote this semester of University at TAMIU. My third learning

experience can not be directed by one assignment but by three different analyses. I learned that
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having a fresh set of eyes can catch mistakes, unclear delays, and even find that my writing was

not cohesive with my thesis.

Finally, I made adjustments through a Peer Review. This was not a major checkpoint in

my writing process. I did not rely on peer review for my essay to be proper, but it helped to have

someone who is blind to my topic and my point of view to tell me how to prepare and write my

essay in a clear manner. I asked a friend to tell me what I could change to complete my final

review of Essay II, and he told me it was great. Once again, I missed a word that was misspelled,

and I had unconnected phrases. Peer Reviewing my final changes allowed for someone, such as

my future reader find any errors in my paper that I did not catch.

As I have mentioned, I took my sweet time during the writing process in order to try to

create the most depth in my analysis. This came with some challenges. The most difficult aspect

of revising this essay for the last time was just adding to my topic sentence. The feedback from

my professor about giving more to the reader made me want to write out entries about each topic.

I wished I could present more details in order to trap my readers, but I knew I had to use a

strategy of less is more. So I worked and discussed my choices with a friend, and we came to the

conclusion that adding more adjectives over the topic sentence was going to be enough to keep

my readers wanting more but not getting the full analysis too early on.

On the contrary difficult would be the least challenging part of revising my essay one last

time. I would have to say it was just going through my essay again and ensuring that there were

no grammatical errors. This was easy for me because I did not have to do any thinking; the less I

thought, the better. I just let the paper control my imagination as if I were building a puzzle with

all the details in order to come up with a poster such as the one I analyzed. I would also like to
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include the classmate I had reviewed my work to double down on my writing for the same goal

of not having any misspellings or lost phrases.

In my portfolio, I decided to mention the struggle I had with different analyses. For my

genre analysis page, I mentioned how I had to pick three out of the many features that TAMIU

has to offer its students. I did not want them to read my description and read my essay to find

that the description was a summary of my essay. For visual text, I mentioned the moving element

and how breaking apart all the features, such as the people, buildings, and stormy sky, led my

writing to form itself. Keeping a tease but not giving away all the features of the poster. Lastly,

for rhetorical analysis, I did tell my readers that I was lazy and did not put enough effort into

finding a journal article tha I could better connect with in order to create a better essay. I was

lazy but had to learn from it and play the cards I was dealt. I had nothing to hide from my readers

and allowed them the chance to read my work and find what I was able to achieve.

Moving from my final project to English 1301 as a whole. The most challenging part of

this course was having to dig into the nitty gritty, I know it sounds easy, but I am not one to just

analyze depth. What I see first is usually what is important to me. Having to find further meaning

behind every color on a piece of art, reading between the lines of a short article, and collecting

the most important information from a journal had to of been the hardest part of this course. Only

difficult because I had to find deeper meaning behind artifacts than I usually do in my daily life.

An example of analysis was picking an outfit, I just find colors that match more or less, so I

rarely think about what I’m going to wear.

Now to briefly break down what was the analysis of each of my essays. Essay I consisted

of the analysis of a poster. I chose a poster created by the Office of Information Technology
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(OIT). OIT’s flyer included information on what they can assist any student with, what

technological resources are available to us, and how we can self-manage our dusty accounts that

are automatically provided to every Dustdevile on campus. I had a hard time deconstructing the

already short and informative article. I had to elaborate further than just writing, I had to infer

what real worked uses a student would come across in order to use these resources. Speaking to

students when I had just joined TAMIU was difficult as I still did not know what it was like to be

a student. I can say now that having resources such as UPrint and Skylab assisted me in focusing

in during the semester and not having to worry about where I could print and study.

My second Essay was on visual analysis. I picked a poster about a new TV show that I

have not watched, this poster had lots of detail and a neutral color pallet. Being about survival,

the main characters in that had to go up against this end-of-world event happened to of been the

easiest essay to write. What was hard was finding ways for someone without the poster to

imagine what colors, buildings, and environment had looked like. I struggled to describe where

the buildings stood in relation to the people. I was able to take some knowledge from my

Professor by utilizing directional phrases such as foreground, right center, and directly next. This

writing process almost made me feel like I was doing the opposite of directing. I described each

piece of the poster as if I had to reconstruct one in a blind person’s mind. Essay II was just

challenging in finding locations and writing them out.

Lastly, the most challenging part of Essay III had to of been the topic. I had to analyze a

Peer-Reviewed Journal written by someone else that was published. I am not sure if I just did not

take my time looking for a topic of which I could connect more or understand better. I chose a

topic relating to engineering logistics when I originally wanted pure logistics, as in Import and

Export. This was not a deal breaker to me as the journal was more on the learning side of things
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over the real topic of engineering logistics. The topic was on how online apps such as Kahoot

can benefit the learning environment and community. As you can read, I was all over the place

on this third essay. Not terrible writing, but I did not pick the topic I wanted. I was slightly off

the tracks when I picked Engineering logistics, and lastly, it had nothing to actually do with both

of those. If I could go back, I would much rather pick and more into a more in-depth topic that I

could better connect with.

On the contrary of the previous paragraphs the easiest part of this course was the learning

experience. The class has ensured that I submit my assignments properly and to ensure that all

my links work. The class was mostly professor-led, but my classmates and I participated in

many student presentations, Kahoots, and more. Showing up to an 8:30 AM English class did not

see hard because both my professor and classmates were there for a reason.

I mentioned assignments and ensuring they are turned in properly because I was unaware

that Google Pages does not work with our school’s online platform, BlackBoard. Although my

professor had previously mentioned it in one of our first classes, I seem to have missed this

information. I received around four total zeros as a grade for assignments. My professor was

kind enough to inform me early on, within the two weeks of assignments that I was submitting

improperly. While I was distraught at first and worried that it would drop my final grade for this

class, my professor was sure to tell me that it is a learning experience. I have ensured double and

even triple-checked every assignment since then that all my submissions are .pdf. This will

ensure that anyone with the submitted link will be able to access the contents in that link no

mater who, what, when, and where they are.

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Moving from my learning being the easiest part of my English 1301 class. I really do

think this class has prepared me to be a part of my school’s academic community. I have learned

how to analyze articles in detail, communicate my opinion on other people’s work, and how they

can assist in ensuring my work is qualified through Peer-Review, and how to submit my work.

This course especially Professor Sharity Nelson, has assisted me in forming a strong foundation

to build on. Throughout this semester, I was able to ask Professor Nelson anything regarding

English and the writing process. There was never a time she disregarded any of us, and I believe

this is why it was easy to show up to class, do work, and submit on time. My professor ensured

she broke down every assignment and essay topic so that we would all know what and how to do

our work.

I believe I am ready to take on the rest of my English courses and I know I can properly

analyze each topic that may come ahead of me in any class outside of English, Reading, and

Writing. I am grateful to of had such great professors and leaders to ensure that I become a

successful student here at TAMIU. My first semester at University is one I am proud to say I

learned a lot.
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Works Cited

Lamott, Anne. "Shitty First Drafts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College

Writers. Ed. by Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.

Martin’s, 2005: 93-96."Self-Editing Workshop." Purdue OWL® - Purdue OWL® -

Purdue University,

owl.purdue.edu/owl/multilingual/multilingual_students/tips_for_writing_in_north_americ

an_colleges/self_editing_workshop.html.