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Kassidy Owen
English 111
J. VanderMey
14 December, 2015
Critical Reflection of My AMS
The topic I chose for my academic synthesis essay was, Should All College Learning be
packed into 16 week Semesters and if classes should really be taught at a faster speed. This topic
gave me an interest because it is through my own experience. When I started going to school
here at mid michigan community college a year ago, I learned through experience of my classes
how fast things went. For instance my math class, that class had no intent of going slow,
although it was the lowest math class Mid had to offer. We would study and review a chapter
for a couple of the class times that we had that class, and then move to a new thing the following
week. I was not used that kind of speed and at my level of learning, that became really rough. In
high school, I had a math class that taught me very specific ways in order to comprehend what I
was learning. I eventually had to drop out, I was trying so hard to keep up, but I could not.
When I started taking english 111 and getting into writing our AMS papers, I was not so sure
what to write about, but the topic was on college. I started to think about the same topic that I
already did in english 110 but I did not want to do the same topic again, that would have been
boring. So with the help of my professor, we talked about how I was doing as a learner and
eventually we came up with a research question ( Should All College Learning be packed Into 16
Week Semesters) that I found problematizing. I wanted to hopefully speak for other students with
learning disabilities who could be feeling the same thing.

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When writing this and revising it more and more, I realized that the writing strategy I was
using from my former high school english teacher was really repetitive and almost robotic,
which was something that was happening in my AMS, but I try to keep it as formal as possible.
So when I was discussing the repetitive words, It clicked to me that I should not write my papers
like that again because that is what professors are seeing wrong and it is not improving how I
write. So that is something I will always be trying to improve on.
As I focused on changing my writing style and writing about the problems with the
classes being too fast, I wanted a majority of the focus to be a voice for students with learning
disabilities and how learning can be a challenge, and might require slower methods than others.
Once I had a topic to write about, I really was not sure how there would any research
articles that were kinda on my certain topic. Surprisingly, with the help of my professor, we
found some good articles that wrapped around about colleges and fast classes. These articles
gave me new arguments and some solutions that helped write my paper a bit better. Within my
paper, I quoted a lot from articles mainly because they had some good points. I also began to
focus on some of the problems about college classes being too fast and was able to make that
part of my main thing. I used what some of the authors said in their articles to make things come
more clear.
I also started to look within my sources for solutions and I did find a lot, which made me
happy, but I struggled many times to get my point across while writing this research paper and
making it understandable for other readers. However, Many of the different solutions I
discovered through these articles made me wonder what would students and professors think of
this. That solution was if things were spaced out and such. One of the sources that stuck out to
me the most was an article by Michael A. Gallo from the Florida Institute of Technology and

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Michael Odu from Hillsborough Community College, Examining the Relationship Between
Class Scheduling and Student Achievement in College Algebra, they said some things that I
really liked and I am kinda hoping that this will happen someday in all schools. Research has
found that practicing and reviewing information periodically over the course of a few weeks,
months, or years, builds retention. This part I like because it is something that does not happen
in many schools or colleges. If this particular thing were to be placed in classrooms or in
teaching methods, students would probably do 100% better. With the help from my peers, the
english department, and professor, I was able to see the changes I needed to make within my
paper.

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Work Cited
Gallo, Michael A., and Michael Odu. "Examining the Relationship Between Class Scheduling
and Student Achievement in College Algebra." Proquest (April 2009): 299-325. Web
Reeves, Thomas. "College Isn't for Everybody, and It's a Scandal That We Think It Is."
Exploring Relationships: Globalization and Learning in the 21st Century. New York:
Longman, 2012. N. pag. Print.
Troiano, Peter F., Julie Ann Liefield, and Jennifer V. Trachtenberg. "Academic Support and
College Success for Postsecondary Students with Learning Disabilities." Journal of
College Reading and Learning (Spring 2010): 35-44. Proquest. Web.

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