Zhang1

Junhe Zhang
ENGLISH 113
Professor Jon Beadle
7 May 2016
Reflection
This is my second semester of my college life, I have learned many stuffs from class English 113B.
Such as more format rules, grammar, creating a own website, and the differences feature of culture,
because I studied Chicana/Chicano study in the last semester. Due to I prefer to learn more things
about American culture, I changed CHS 113A to English 113B. I am a international student with a
really bad English, when I came here. In the first semester, I even could not understand what does
say, so I usually miss homework, therefore, I have a low GPA with a bad situation. After I adapt the
surroundings, I get many friends here and my English have improved great, at least I can understand
what is professor saying. A outstanding phenomenon is that I have known finding help on campus,
like I often go talking to professor who has gave me a really great helping and the tutoring in the
library. In this class, we totally have three progressions of assignments, I went to the tutoring three
times for each progression. First, I ask for finding a great theme statement that is why I changed my
theme many times. Second, I roughly did my essay that they check my structure and the logic of my
essay. Finally, I usually ask them for fix my grammar but they never did it, they just revised my
essay and checked format. In brief, I have a great improvement of my writing skills, especially, I
learned create a great theme statement.
Project space is the first assignment that is a big essay. We talked about self-identity and cultures.
At that time, I am still unskilled for finding a great theme statement, I have thinking about the theme
for a while. At the first time, I wrote "International communication and identities" that my theme
statement is "Communication shows the identity of people and cultures, identity reflect how a
communication of culture having." Because I have to quote two in-class readings and two outside

Zhang2
credible sources. We have many readings, which are talking about communication between cultures
and self-identity. However, after I went to the tutoring, I knew the meaning of space, which is
showing a space that people are living in. It is not a communication between cultures, and also, in
some concept, space have common point with cultures that these both are showing person has many
identities and roles in the life. Therefore, I changed my theme statement to "Living in multi spaces"
and I showed several roles of myself. Then I went to tutoring again, tutor is a Asian guy, who is a
great guy. He explain very well of my theme statement and my structure, so after this time, I always
make appointment with him. He suggested me that I did not have enough analysis to support my
theme and example. I only show that my three different roles in my life, but I do not have a
explaining. Such as, what the feature of each roles are, how these roles came out, and so on. Besides,
my structure had problems, like the order of roles should be from small to big, or the most important
to less one. And also, the analysis should after each example and we better have a big analysis after
all but before conclusion. However, I didn't write a great analysis due to I had really no idea about it
and I do not have a great imagining, in my opinion, those roles are not what I want. After all, I still
kept going to tutoring, this time, he fixed my format that he only did a few parts due to we only have
thirty minutes. Finally we did a conclusion of the whole processes of this essay that we checked out
what I learned from this essay. Tutoring is really helpful for me.
Project text was mainly talking about the book Every Day, we choose a aspect from this book and
do analysis. We had a group working at the first step that is a group presentation, there were three
Chinese student with one Mexican girl. My group got the topic that is private life and public life,
which is showing the secrets of the main role and the communication with others. We discussed
together and doing a great job, although the presentation is not good enough because I was very
nervous that I forgot almost everything I prepared during the speech. Then we did self-working, 5-6
pages essay with two sources from class readings and two from outside sources. I did a roughly draft
of private life and public life, then I went to tutoring, he said that my draft did not have a specific

Zhang3
theme statement. Besides, I did not have a great idea of private and public life. So, I changed my
topic to "The Purpose of Life" that I think this is easier. However, it is not easy, I am even not clear
what the purpose of my life and I have a wrong thought of purpose of life. I thought the purpose is a
goal or dream( a big goal), but tutor said that the purpose of life is the reason of existing in this
world. I am so confuse with these concepts till now that I think the dream is the reason of existing in
this world, even existing also is the purpose of life,. After I went to tutoring twice, it did not make me
clear with these concepts, I changed my theme many times. Therefore, this essay is not significant
for me.
Project web complete is a group working, which requests we creating a our own website and do a
presentation to show a argument of a well-known person. We are the same students in our group but
that Mexican girl, she might felt uncomfortable with three Chinese guys and only one Mexican. So,
we are a Chinese group, which had a better conversion. Our topic was food culture and the person
who we were going to talking about is a famous England chef, Jamie Oliver. We did a specific plan
of our working. First, we both researched particular information of Jamie Oliver. Like his shows,
recipes, and argument. Then, we met in the library, we considered to choose one of his argument,
which is people must eat health food. We did three parts for each person, which are the reason of
eating health food, the important of health food, and the ways of eating health food. Next, we were
trying to did a draft of our presentation. However, problems were came out, we both have same
things to say, and we did a really wide topic that we have to make it specific and strong. Therefore,
we changed our topic to Jamie Oliver recommend that children must learn basic cooking and parents
have to cooking at home for their children. Then we did another plan, which are still three parts,
introduce Jamie Oliver and his argument, showing the evidence of he did at school and home, and
show a counterargument and conclusion. I did the last one that I was still super nervous, I forgot so
many information and skipped one table, which was showing some evidence of the influence of fast
food. In brief, we did great and I have learned many things of working with a group, like a group

Zhang4
need a leader to schedule everything, make a great plan for group, distribute jobs to each members.
Additionally, we did a funny in-class writing, though I did not do it well. In the beginning of this
semester, professor Beadle gave a rock for each students, then we wrote two short essay about this
rock, one was describe the rock as we can that I used all the words I know, I only did half of page.
Another one was that we imagine how much we love this rock as we can that I did not finish it with
my poor writing skill. Then, this rock accompany with us through this semester. In the ending, we
wrote a short essay, which was talking about how well we took care of our rock and what we learned
from this rock. At this time I did a great one with my imagine, actually I just left it in my backpack
and I never take it out.
In conclusion, I have learned a lot in this semester, I will keep going on my
study and doing it hard, through this semester, I have improved my writing skill,
speaking and read, I enable to read a book without translating that I can
understand plots. And also, I got many helps from campus, especially helping
from professor. Beadle is a great professor, he gave me a lot of help and gave me a significant
experience. He gave the example for each assignment when we feel difficult and accepted question
any time when he is in the office. I appreciate! I really enjoy studying in this class.