Yuridia Espinoza Guzman

Dr. Jeffries
STACC-ENG 100
25 November 2014
Reflection Essay
At the beginning of the semester, I was not sure what was expected of me when taking
English 100. I knew the course was meant to help prepare for college level English, but what was
the difference between my last high school English class and this one? I thought. Would the
assignments be more difficult? Were we expected to make a drastic jump from 5 paragraph
essays to 3 essays a week? I was very curious, but I knew that however this class would be
taught I was ready for the unexpected. I believed my friends when they said, You are on your
own in college. In my senior year, my class got the opportunity to be the ERWC experiment.
The expository reading & writing course was very helpful. I preferred this class over 12th grade
literature that the rest of my classmates were taking. The first week of being in English 100 was
very similar to my ERWC, I was very happy that the material wasnt unfamiliar to me. I even
wanted to email my 12th grade teacher and let her know how they should continue offering
ERWC at our school. English 100 strongly recommended us to annotate articles, any reading for
that matter. I read modules, chose quotes, and annotated in high school. In my English class now,
I have exercised annotating often and I feel like with the help of my past experience and new
English teacher I have improved. I was use to highlighting words I could not define, or put stars
next to my favorite quotes. Now I write questions per each paragraph on the side of the articles
and make so many references.

Even though, the topic of readings and essay questions arent my favorite when they do
no catch my attention, I was really into the stories at the beginning of my English 100 class. The
literacy stories were very interesting, brought out great discussions during class and allowed me
to have so much information to write about. Throughout the semester, I felt like the readings
became dull and made it hard for me to write a whole essay around them. For example, the
literary analysis essay was not my strongest assignment. However, my attitude toward reading
and writing remained positive and I am still looking forward to learning new writing techniques.
Not every topic assigned will be a strong area for me to write about, which is why as a writer,
and learner I must work on being able to be ready for any topic assigned to me. I hope to become
such a great writer, that I do not get writers block just because the topic of an essay does not
interest me. I hope achieve my goal by becoming an expert on essay structure and guidelines by
practicing what an essay must include. Who knows, maybe by my last college English class
essays will be a piece of cake for me. I hope.
Next semester, besides looking forward to interesting writing topics, I hope my paragraph
transitions improve. I have noticed when I have my writing revised that I lack paragraph
transitions. When I was in elementary, I remember always using transition words. I think I
overused them which are why I toned down the use of the growing up. So by middle school and
high school I only used some here and there. Now in my English 100 class I am aware a
transition between each paragraph helps the essay come together, and creates a great flow for the
ideas put together. I understand it is a learning process which is why I am looking forward to the
second course of this STACC program.