Kim 1

Stephanie Kim
Professor Batty
English 113A
8 December 2015

Reflection essay
Throughout this course, I have learned about critical thinking, reading, and writing. The
in class activities and assignments helped me learn how to become a better writer. After taking
this course, I can see the differences from my writing skills in the past. I also identified and
learned from my strengths and weakness throughout the semester.
The textbook They Say I Say provided many templates that were useful and a guidance
to my writing. There were various topics discussed in They Say I Say such as, setting up
quotations and explaining the quotes, making transitions, saying why it matters, and making
revisions. Direct quotations are using quotes word for word, whereas indirect quotes are
paraphrasing quotes. Quote sandwiches helped me analyze and organize my essays in a clear
way. It starts off with the introduction to the quote, then the quote itself, and an explanation of
the quote. Including transitions in body paragraphs helps the paragraph flow and is coherent. In
an essay, saying what matters and why it matters is an important question. It creates a bigger
picture, which helps the audience visualize what is happening. In the writing process, global
revisions takes place after drafting and before editing an essay. Revision is important because
we learn to write by rewriting what we wrote.

Kim 2
I wrote three different types of essays in this course: narrative, expository, and
argumentative. Before I wrote each essay, I completed an outline. In the introduction, I wrote a
hook, background information about the subject, and a thesis. For the body paragraphs I wrote
the main points and subtopics of the essay. For each subtopic I included quotes, if it was
necessary, to support my main points. The conclusion section had a restatement of the thesis and
closing thoughts about the essay. This helped me write my essays easily because its organized.
For my narrative essay, I learned how to include dialogue and sensory details. A dialogue will
help the audience understand what is being said throughout the essay. The sensory details
provides an illustration of what is going on in the essay. For my expository essay, I learned how
to use quote sandwiches. For my argumentative essay, I learned how to do research from library
databases and how to do an annotated bibliography.
The strengths and weaknesses I found are based on my essays, peer reviewing, and
reading journals. The reading journals and peer reviewing were my strengths. I increased my
critical thinking skills by making connections from what I read, and defining unknown
vocabulary words. I also analyzed direct quotations from my textbooks, They Say I Say,
New Voices, Everyday, and Models for Writers. I learned how to evaluate and provide
feedback while peer reviewing. I also learned from my own mistakes after reading the
comments and suggestions from my classmates.
This course helped me improve my writing and critical thinking skills. Even though most
of the material covered in class were familiar, it was beneficial. I became more familiar with the
lectures and assignments from class. In the future, I will need to write many more essays and
have stronger reading comprehension and critical thinking skills because my major is a liberal
arts major. I hope to continue improving upon my writing skills in the future.