Sumergido 1

Megan Sumergido

Professor Lawson

ENGL 113B

08 May 2017

Reflection Essay

Words

The Progression of The Spring 2017 Semester

Throughout the years of taking English classes, I felt that the subject itself was not

my strongest suit. I was so pessimistic about my writing because I did not feel any

motivation. But ever since middle school, Ive been told that my compositions are good for

my grade level, which made me believe that I can do just fine the rest of my years in school. I

mainly wrote poems and 3-5 paragraph essays during my adolescent years in junior high.

During high school, I started to write more paragraphs for my essays for research papers. I

learned more about English writing and how essential it is in our daily lives. I learned that I

am decent writer and I have progressed over the years from all the English class I took from

middle school to high school up until right now. The different learning styles that my

teachers have taught me, helped me understand more about literature and writing.

All the work that I have done in this class really prepared me for my upcoming

classes during the Fall 2017 Semester Term. My portfolio tells me that I learned more about

essay writing and how the quality of the paper is more important than the quantity. The time

being put into typing up these writing compositions reflects on the context, that is what I also

learned in ENGL 113B. Basically, this semester was like a review for me because of my
 Sumergido 2

ENGL 113A class. My previous English professor prepared me for this semester because she

did emphasize on the research papers and had my class do one for our final essay, as well.

I learned more about MLA citation and how I should not use website for my

citations, Easy Bib because it is incorrect and not so helpful. That is why throughout this

entire semester I learned more about how to correctly cite my sources with the help of

Professor Lawson, our Supplemental Instructor Albert and some of my fellow peers. Along

with a small handy-dandy book that we had to buy and/or rent for class that you can get from

any store. The handbook is called, The Little Seagull Handbook, which demonstrates

different kinds of writing for students. Learning to properly cite a source with either the

handbook or the website called Purdue Owl, which is another useful resource.

My writing process has evolved even more this semester by thinking more critically

and thoroughly with the topics that I chose for each project from Project Space to Project

Web then to our final essay, Project Text. I looked back from my previous writing and used

my new and improved writing skills that I have learned for the whole class to see. It felt like

a roller coaster ride because my grades for the essays went up a little high then went a bit

lower and then reached the highest peak of the ramp. The escalation really shocked me, I did

not expect to do so much better on Project Text than I did with the other two. Im really

astonished and delighted to have receive the grade that I got, which was a 92. It may not

seem much, but I would usually get scored in the 70s or 80s.

The class itself helped me with time management for upcoming research papers for

my future classes. That is one of the things I still need to work on is time management,

making sure that I can prepare for upcoming assignments in advanced instead of doing it last

minute. The critique for your peers and yourself is very important for all essay papers.
 Sumergido 3

Professors say to be critical and give advice to peers, and to make sure to follow your own

advice when working on an assignment. What I personally need to work on is expanding

more on my choice of words, my vocabulary because Id want my papers to sound more like

a collegiate-level type of paper. Ill be sure to not use random words that wont make any

sense with the topic. Reading is key to English, I do not read much, but I would want to try

reading more books or maybe news articles on the internet/newspapers. Thinking critically is

a skill that I have obtained from the moment I first read my own paper in elementary school

and stuck my way through with other peers papers. It may need some work though.

I can see my progress in my assignments by doing comparisons with the old essays

and the new ones. This portfolio reflects my whole entire progress from the moment I entered

the class on Day 1. Indeed, I need to work on grammar and read regularly. I also need to

work on MLA formatting, like indenting my sentence the right way and correcting the Works

Cited page(s). I am willing to just keep practicing writing, the more I write the more I will

improve for my Fall 2017 Semester. Since, I am taking Chicanos Speech class during the Fall

17 Term, I will for sure use the skills of critical thinking, originality, projection and the use

of a dictionary/thesaurus. Even if there are other classes that require a writing segment, Ill

use the knowledge that I have now about essay writing onto my future tasks.