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Louise Knight

Taylor Martin

EN 101

Fall 2019

Final Reflection Essay

As my first semester at the University of Alabama is coming to a close, I find it very

insightful to look back on my writing, and other aspects of my first semester, and reflect. I began

my year in english by stating three habits of mind that I found most prevalent in my life:

creativity, responsibility, and curiosity. In regards to writing papers, I find that these are still very

prevalent. For example, when writing my papers this year I had to use creativity. For my

introduction letter, I had to think about important parts of my life and interesting things about

me. I wanted to showcase my creativity early on in my writing. When writing the memoir, I had

to tell a story that was very important to me in a way that was creative enough to be interesting

for someone else to read. Finally, I believe that my profile essay is my biggest display of

creativity. First through choosing a topic, second through determining my method and gathering

opinions, and finally through actually putting it all together in a well-crafted essay. Regarding

responsibility, writing papers in college has taught me to be much more responsible with my

time. While in high school, I would have an english teacher remind me every day where in the

writing process I should be and when I should have certain things done by. Now that I am in

college, all of that went away. I have had to learn to manage my time and work in class to make

sure that I have everything finished on time and that I am proud of my work. When beginning to

write a paper, on any subject, I believe that there must be an aspect of curiosity. There has to be
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that initial spark of curiosity to make you want to learn more about your topic and write a whole

paper on the topic. These three habits of mind were and still are very prevalent in my life and

when writing papers.

Revisions are essential when writing any paper. When I wrote my first paper of the year,

the Introduction letter, I chose to just be honest with my writing. I did not want to pretend to be a

student who loved english or writing so I laid it all out there. When I finished writing, I read over

the paper and also had someone in my class read it and my roommate read it. They provided me

with helpful suggestions about expanding on details about going to Panama this summer and

explaining my past experience with english classes. Peer reviews are my favorite way to revise

my work. When writing my memoir, my biggest problem was deciding how to begin and end the

story. I could not figure out when I was adding too much unnecessary details and when I wasn’t

adding enough. Finally, I decided to try just jumping right into the scene by describing the

setting and try and really put the reader in my shoes and make it as imaginable as possible. This

seemed to be the most effective way to tell my story. While both of these pieces of writing

involved a lot of revisions, my final profile essay was a different story. When writing the profile,

I decided that I was going to do most of the work on the front side so that I did not have to do as

much editing in the end. I worked hard to get interviews and really map out how I wanted to

write this paper. Once I finished the outline, I just had to write the paper and it was already

mostly the way I wanted it to be in the end. My amount of revisions and methods of revisions

changed between each paper, but without revisions I would not have been as proud of the final

outcome of my work.
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Creating an ePortfolio was a very new experience for me. In the past, I have had to create

portfolios of my work, but they have always just been my writing, printed out together, and put

in a folder. Also, I had never used Weebly before so that was something new to learn as well. On

my website I wanted to reflect my personality. On the front page, my writing page, and my

reflection page I have pictures of the beach. This is important to me because the beach is my

favorite place ever. I think of myself as a pretty laid back and relaxed person and the beach

reflects this part of me. In addition, I talk about the beach in my introduction letter. I am a simple

and easy person, so I wanted my portfolio to be simple and easy to navigate. I know for me

personally, I do not like it when it is hard to find what you are looking for on a website, so I

created a tab for my three main essays, one tab for my final reflection essay, and one tab to learn

about me. Also, on my all about me page, I included pictures of important people in my life that

made me who I am today. In one picture I included my siblings, and in the other I included my

new friends that I have made in college who have helped me get through this major change in my

life. My website is a perfect reflection of myself.

Coming into college, I brought with me my former english class work ethic. In high

school, I took all AP classes except for english. English was always my “easy class” that I never

really had to worry about. My teacher did not require much of us and I could get by with writing

my paper the night before and not really doing any work in class. In college, I think the part of

me that has changed the most as a writer is my work ethic. Having so much time to work on our

papers in class has really taught me the importance of using the time you are given to get work

done now, so it doesn’t all pile up in the end. At the beginning of this semester, I would use my

class time to do other homework or just check my email. However, I learned that I did not like
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writing an entire paper in one night. I had to learn to use my time wisely to prepare for my

writing and make it as easy as possible for myself. By the time I had to write my profile essay, I

was much more prepared, with everything laid out in an outline. Then, I just found myself

putting my work together with transitions and additional details. I evolved the most as a writer

this semester by learning to manage my time and prepare myself better for success.

Next semester I am registered to take English 102. My goal for my writing in this next

class is to remember what I learned from this semester about managing my time and laying out

my plan for my writing beforehand. I plan to make next semester as easy as possible for myself

in my english class because I have to take more difficult classes in my major. Looking into the

future, I want to continue to focus on the habits of mind that I mentioned earlier: curiosity,

creativity, and responsibility. I also want to add reflection to this list. One of the best ways to

learn new things is from what has been done in the past. By setting time aside to reflect on

experiences, I believe that I can make myself a more mature person and writer.

This first semester of college has been more than I could have ever asked for. I have

learned so much more about myself from these few months than I believe I have in my entire

highschool timespan. I have created new friendships and formed bonds with people I would have

never met if it had not been for this University. I am so grateful for everything I am taking away

from my first semester at the University of Alabama.