Dallen Milne

Spanish 493

Critical Thinking & Expression Reflection Essay

During my studies here at BYU, I have had the opportunity to explore a whole new
world of learning, and I mean that quite literally. The different Spanish courses I have taken
have allowed me to learn about Latin-America, in all of its beauties and wonders. It has led
me to utilize different parts of the BYU Harold B. Lee library, so that I may discover
valuable information to help me develop better techniques on how to write both research
and argumentative papers.
As I was searching through my assignments and projects, I found several that I feel
like are good examples of me utilizing good techniques and resources to write both
research and argumentative essays, which I will list and explain below.
In my Spanish 322 Composition class, I was fortunate enough to learn how to write
and compose a paper in Spanish, using conectores and other techniques to help the paper
be more fluid. For one of our final projects, we had to choose a topic of which we had to do
some extensive research and present it in front of the class. I chose to research about sleep
and how it affects not only the performance of students, but also with adults. There are
millions of Americans that deal with sleeping disorders, and I was able to research the
various causes of that and how to prevent such things from happening. I definitely lost
sleep writing some of these papers, so I definitely feel like I could relate to this topic while I
was researching it for class.
There were fun projects that I was able to research for as well. An example that I
have here is from my Spanish 355 Culture and Civilizations class, where I was asked to
research about Latin music around the time of the Mexican Revolution. It was a fun
assignment and I got to learn more about some talented and historical figures that
contributed to the rich history of music in Latin-America.
Another paper I chose was from my Spanish 345 Iberian Civilizations class, where
we focused primarily in the rich history and literature of Spain. Towards the end of this
class, we were asked to write an argumentative essay about why we think Humanities is
such a valuable subject to study and how it can benefit us in the present as well as the
future. I chose a few works of art/literature that we were fortunate enough to study
throughout the semester, as well as a film to describe their overall significance. Professor
Stallings also had us read his article titled “The Don Quijote Effect,” which was incredibly
insightful. This paper helped me reflect on the semester as a whole, as well as the other
Spanish classes I have taken thus far, to truly understand why the humanities is so valuable
and how it trains our mind to think in a more analytically and compassionately.
Several skills that I was able to attain while taking some of these Spanish classes
were how to write cohesive ideas and paragraphs to represent my research and
understanding of the topics I chose. I also learned how to be more confident in my speaking
abilities as I had to present various projects in front of my fellow classmates, and finally, I
was able to develop my decision making skills as I chose to argue for or against certain
ideals. As far as goals, I plan to take a more analytical approach to more things in life,
whether that be when I visit an art exhibit or reading about current events. In addition, I
want to utilize my improved writing abilities in my future career to connect better with my
co-workers and family members.