Alexis Stanley

Ms. McCampbell
ENGL 101
December 11, 2015
E-Portfolio Reflective Essay
Assessing My Development as a Writer
This semester in English 101 was different from when I took English 052. In English 052
I learned the basics of writing an essay, and how to cite information in MLA format. Whereas in
English 101 I learned how to write research papers and input in-text citations in my essays. Over
the past six months I have realized that college professors have different teaching methods. But it
is my responsibility to learn their methods and apply them to my assignments. Before I entered
college I would say English was my worse subject, but as I progressed through this fall semester
I realized that my writing continues to improve.
During this course I have displayed several general habits. One habit is planning out my
assignments. I always started planning my essay by making an outline. In English 052 it was
harder for me to make an outline than to write the essay out. But in English 101 it was easier for
me to make an outline, and harder to write the essay out. Another habit I had was not allowing
myself enough time to complete the assignments. Whenever I planned out my homework time I
would get sidetracked, and start procrastinating. The final habit was not taking advantage of my
resources. I did not seek enough assistance from Ms. McCampbell or the Writing Center. Both of

these resources would have been a great help with my writing. But I will improve these habits for
my next English class.
I have displayed several College composition goals throughout the semester. The first
goal was to be able to write well-organized, unified, coherent essays with clear a complete thesis
statement. In essay one and two I had a hard time developing a thesis because they were always
to vague. But now I know how to fix my thesis statements. Another goal was to conduct
research; access and choose appropriate sources from standard library resources which may be in
a variety of formats both print and electronic. I had a hard time finding articles to go with essays
two and three. I think this is something I need more practice with because I know I will have
more research papers due in the future. My final goal was to conform to the grammar,
punctuation, and spelling rules of standard written English with a minimum of errors. The
grammatical errors in my essays decreased one by one. I think practicing grammar on
worksheets helped me a lot, and I will continue to do it.
There are three writing skills I wanted to gain from this class. The first skill was essay
organization and development. In essay one I had a problem with organizing paragraphs three
and four. This issue caused me to get a low grade, but when I revised the essay my grade got
higher. This skill improved tremendously over the second, third, and fourth essays. The second
skill was grammar, punctuation, and usage review. In essay one I had grammar errors such as
fragments and apostrophes. In essay two I had grammar errors in subject verb agreements and
pronoun cases. In essay three I had grammar errors with pronoun/ antecedent agreements, subject
verb agreements, and verb tense. I did not have any grammar errors in essay four. But in the
second, third, and fourth essays I had punctuation errors with commas. Like I said before if I
continue to practice these errors I will get better at them. The third skill was writing research

papers that employ a variety of print and electronic devices. I think I did well with my in-text
citations. But I had a problem trying to figure out who to use for parenthetical citations when
there was no author. Ms. McCampbell did teach us how to figure it out, but I did not understand
it clearly. From now on when I do not have a full understanding of something I will ask my
instructor to explain it again. Throughout this course I have improved two of these skills.
English 101 was not easy for me but I got through it. I feel as though I improved in essay
organization and development because I had got better at writing coherently. I also improved my
grammar errors, but I still feel as though I could use more practice with it. I did not fully improve
with my in-text citations, and I need to do some more work in this area because it is
unacceptable. Overall I believe Ms. McCampbell has prepared me for English 102.