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Yaretzi Mancillas

Ms. Castro

ENGL 1301

11 December 2023

Final Reflective Essay

This semester was filled with surprising challenges that I would never have expected. I

was not expecting this sort of experience from college and this course. I went into college

knowing it was going to be challenging but I never expected it to be this challenging. My ENGL

1301 course was the one course I did not mind doing work for. I learned a lot from my

professor in this course and I currently feel a difference in my writing. I am glad I got to have

the professor I had, and for all the lessons I learned while taking this course, it changed my

writing for the better. Really prioritizing this course was one of the greatest ideas I have ever

had. Prioritizing this course really showed in my grades because I would not let myself slack on

any assignments. I knew this course was going to be challenging so I would always try my

absolute hardest to stay on top of all the assignments.

Some activities that helped me a lot in this course were the essay proposals. I liked the

essay proposals because the professor would have to approve each proposal and give you

feedback on whether or not the proposal is valid. When I got the feedback from my instructor I

now knew if what I was going to write about fits the prompt. The feedback given by my

professor helped me a lot because of the extra ideas she gave me. This also motivated me to
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have a good proposal the first time so that way I would not have to write another proposal on a

different topic. My instructor would also leave comments of ideas on how to expand the essay

without steering away from the prompt. Those ideas and comments were very helpful in my

drafting process, because I now had a better variety of ideas to strengthen my main idea.

Learning about how to correctly analyze a text was very impactful and important for

me. I never knew how to interpret certain things or read in between the lines to find the true

meaning behind the contents. With practice I got relatively good at looking for alternate

meanings or the true meaning of the certain text or image we had to analyze for the essay. For

me, the most difficult part for me was interpreting the visual for the visual analysis essay

because I had to come up with a convincing argument that was not obvious. For example, the

visual analysis was so challenging for me because the painting is inspired by a play that is very

widely known. Therefore, making it harder for me to try and come up with an argument that

does not correlate to the play. Nonetheless, I persevered and that essay was one of the highest

scoring essay I’ve ever had.

Revising my essay to try and make it as perfect as possible was quite easy for me. I had

chosen the essay that scored the highest, then took it to the ACE (Academic Center for

Excellence) to have it revised for one final time. I then went back to check on the comments my

instructor left for me on how to better my essay and other suggestions. Then I applied both the

instructors' comments and the tutors' comments. I also had tried to see if I could change

certain sentences or move some sentences around in order for the essay to flow more smooth.

Most of the revision I did was mainly punctuation or grammar checks. I was very pleased with

the outcome of my essay, I felt so proud of all the hard work I had put into my essay.
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When I face challenges, I try and get them done as quickly and as swiftly as I can so that

way I can move on and continue with the construction of my essay. I faced a lot of challenges

while revising my essay because I doubted myself a lot. I often wondered if I rephrased it or try

and make it sound more intellectual would the essay flow better or if I should add extra details.

Then I would be faced with the challenges of certain sentences not fitting the paragraph. It was

a struggle for me to finally decide and stick to what I had in the essay before. The easiest part

for me was applying all the revisions suggested by the tutor helping me revise my essay. My

tutor made it quite easy to revise and edit the essay and made sure I felt comfortable with the

edits we made to the essay. The entire process was tedious but extremely rewarding since I

know I am putting my best foot forward in order to achieve the highest possible grade on each

and every assignment possible.

For this course, I knew I had to communicate well in the essays to get my argument

across effectively. This included taking note of what the instructor would tell me about that

essay. For me, I enjoyed showing my essay to my instructor because she would tell me if I was

on the right track. If I was not on the right track, she would give me ideas on how to get back on

topic. Peer reviews would also benefit me a tremendous amount. I was getting feedback in a

way that I could easily understand from a classmate that is genuinely trying to help me succeed.

I have always loved that both parties benefit from peer reviews. The instructor has more

assignments to grade that can help our average move up and the students get extra revision on

their essays. I have always seen peer reviews so beneficial, and I think it is the most effective

way to kill two birds with one stone.

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The most challenging part of this course for me was time management. Time

management is a very vital part to constructing and building an essay. Writing needs a certain

amount of concentration, and I cannot multitask while I am trying to writing. Therefore, making

writing very time consuming. I have never been good at time management, and I have always

struggled trying to be available for very time-consuming assignments. Not to mention all the

details and synonyms I had to research to try and not sound repetitive. I also struggled with

staying on topic. For this reason, a good amount of my essays would go all over the place and

not having one controlling idea that ties in the essay. That is way there should always be at

least one controlling idea in each paragraph. I also remember punctuation being a frequent

problem for me since I normally type pretty fast. I would often put either the wrong

punctuation or not enough punctuation. Nonetheless, I still managed to recognize my problems

and try my hardest to fix them without repeating the same mistakes.

The least challenging part of this course for me was showing up to class every day.

Fortunately, I had an instructor who made class fun in a way. My instructor had such a way with

words and had a lot of empathy for her students. I could always tell that my professor was

trying in any way possible to make her students smile with her spunk. There was never a day

where I did not notice that she was not trying to get our very relaxed class's mood up. Apon

finding out that my professor was also a high school teacher made me more impressed with her

ability to never show a lack of energy. I also believe that is the reason she had so much

empathy towards us (her students). I really appreciate everything my instructor has done for us

(her students), and I will forever be grateful for having such a wonderful inspiring professor for

this course.
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In a way I do feel more accomplished and ready to take on other writing or English

courses. This course was able to teach me a lot of valuable lessons that I will forever apply to

any writing assignment moving forward. Not only did this course teach me about writing but it

also taught me how to edit correctly and to never forget to revise an essay. Another valuable

lesson I learned was to always try and fully understand the prompt before writing anything

down. It is very important because if the prompt is unclear in your head while writing, it will be

fairly easy to tell. Then causing the controlling idea will be lost, and the essay will not be graded

as well as expected. In order to get rid of the problem I would constantly remind myself about

the prompt or I would go back, reread the prompt and then continue writing.

While creating the website for this course I started to think and realize how far I’ve

come and how proud I am of myself for making it this far despite all the challenges I have faced.

Throughout the duration of this specific course, I have gained a lot. Thus, including respect for

my instructor, a newfound appreciation for writing, the drafting process, the revision of each

essay, obtaining feedback from both classmates and my instructor, etc. All of those things have

helped me and pushed me to do better in my writing. I also have learned to enjoy the process

of constructing an essay. I feel as if when a person starts to appreciate each step in the writing

process, it will eventually become easier as you keep going. So, everything I have learned in this

course is very beneficial to my future career. I will go forward in life taking the lessons I have

learned in this course with me.

My feelings toward this class have drastically changed while going through this

semester. At first I was very reluctant to this course because I did not like writing. In fact, I

remember so distinctly that the first essays prompt freaked me out so bad that I had no ideas
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on what to write about. That essay was a genre analysis and at the time I could not

comprehend how to analyze a text nor try and find the genre of the text. My worry was soon

put to rest as my instructor showed us videos on how to find the genre of a text. She also would

point out chapters in the book we could read in order to try and understand how to analyze the

genre from the text. That really helped calm my nerves and gave me a clear picture of what I

needed to do and accomplish. I remember when my professor was checking everyones articles

and it finally came to be my turn. I was so nervous because I did not know if my article was

going to get approved or not. My professor then took my papers analyzed the material and

looked at me and said, “yeah this is pretty good.” I felt such a big relief when she had approved

my article. My professor then gave me some important point that should be sure to mention. I

would note everything that she had told me to later apply it to my essay.

In conclusion, I have learned a lot from not only this course but from my classmates and

doing each assignment carefully and with help from my instructor as well. I am so glad to have

had this experience and my instructor, because I have gained so much knowledge from this

course. For example, I learned how to acknowledge the opposing side of the argument while

actively building my own argument. That way you have strengthened your side while

acknowledging the opposing statement. The number of lessons I have learned and that I will

carry with me is immense. I could not be more grateful to have had such a great learning

experience while taking this course.