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Reymundo Martinez

English 115

Professor Ditch

6 December 2017

English 115 Reflection Essay

Throughout the course of this semester, I was significantly challenged to write higher

level essays and to construct valid arguments for the performance of gender behavior and roles in

society. More importantly, I had learned a lot about writing essays at a college level and have

gained many invaluable tools that have helped me to become a better writer. When I first arrived

here at CSUN, I had confidence in my ability to form arguments from essays in high school

but I always struggled with going over the page limits of essay requirements and not having a

clearly developed thesis. Also, I was used to writing essays that pertained to focusing on one

narrative, and struggled in high school with being able to incorporate multiple sources into my

papers within a given page constraint. These were some of the issues that I struggled with as I

entered this course, and yes I have made some of these mistakes along the way; but after all the

lessons we have done and learning how to form better arguments and write clear, brief, and

thought-provoking essays, I definitely feel more better heading into the rest of my college

education that I can perform at college level writing requirement.

The first time that I had ever gone to Professor Ditchs office hours was during the

timeframe of the first essay where I had gone in to talk about thesis formation and also making

sure that I had used quotations and citations properly throughout my paper. The first draft I did

was a bit of a struggle, for I had only taken direct quotes from my book sources or paraphrased

them, and then had left the work-cited sheet as my only source of reference to the articles that I
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had received the quotes from besides introducing the sources before the quotes throughout the

essay. Going over it with Professor Ditch was helpful, for I learned how to properly put in

parenthesis the sources and page numbers that I get them from, which I didnt know about

before. Furthermore, I had also been unclear on how to take a prompt and form it into a thesis

statement. One of the most helpful exercises for me that helped ensure that my thesis statement

was accurate was during the Project Text essay was during the one on one meeting that I had

where I had not fully developed a clear thesis statement that had answered the prompt, although

my evidence was pointing in the right direction. This assignment was fairly challenging because

we had to use a total of six sources for our essay which I have never done before.

It was fairly difficult at first to organize so many sources, even for a five page essay,

because the one thing that I would struggle with in high school was getting off track with one

source, and then not using the other sources enough or as effectively to make my argument

stronger. The one thing that I definitely feel helped with that was the feedback that Id receive on

my Project Space essay where in two sections of my essay, I had the big And? question around

one of my sections. I usually write my essays focusing on the evidence that is meant to support

my argument, but honestly before this class I have never used that evidence, and then spend a

sentence or two afterwards to explain how it ties back to my thesis statement. This was probably

one of the most helpful tools for me this semester because I have always had a tendency to go

too deep into explaining my evidence, and then I dont go back to my thesis statement until my

conclusion.

Following the mistakes I made with this through Project Space, I made sure that I

gathered sufficient evidence on both Elizabeth and Dawsey when I would argue a point about

them and their gender radical performance. Each time I had brought in a new piece of where they
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perform radically in their gender performance, I briefly said why this is important and correlated

it back to evidence from my outside sources or other readings, and then once more followed up

on how it ties back to the character. For example: When I described Elizabeths bravery in the

concentration camp, I had said that she showed such bravery that even few men would be able to

do. I then referenced to the tale of Joan of Arc and her story of bravery as both she and Elizabeth

of them both perform radically in their gender performance for the betterment of a community,

and how they were radical in their gender performance. This year, I definitely learned how to

present my evidence in a manner that would draw out a point, and going to get help at the

Learning Resource Center helped me to grammatically structure my essay and evidence in a

sufficient manner. Once I made sure that my evidence was clear then go back afterwards and

explain why that piece of evidence is significant or how it relates back to my thesis, a point that

got me from a B to an A since the Project Space Essay.

Finally, I feel that I have learned a lot about how to shrink down the size of my essays to

explain a valid point in less words. With Project Space, I had struggled to shrink down my

explanations and it led to my concluding paragraph going over onto the Work Cited page of my

Polished essay. I learned how to eliminate unnecessary words to my sentences to shrink them

down to size, and it has allowed me to explain things with fewer words.

Overall, this class has been a great learning experience and I definitely feel more

confident in being able to write college level essays and to organize my thoughts more clearly. I

definitely feel more prepared for upper division courses and these are skills that I will take with

me for years to come. It has been a great pleasure to take part in this class and I cant wait to see

what my newfound writing skills will be able to accomplish in the years to come. This is an

experience that Ill remember forever.