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Amanda D. Fowler

Professor Moore

ENG 1301 Mon. Wed. 8am

5 December 2019

Reflective essay

I came into this thinking that this would be an easy class, and I was completely wrong.

This course challenged my writing, my everyday speech, and my knowledge. As I look back

through the semester and all the papers we had to write, I now know that I am not as good as a

writer as I had thought. I never thought twice about my writing in high school I thought that I

was a good writer, it was not my favorite subject, but I was good at it and understood it. Then as

I came into this class, I realized I did not know as much about writing as I thought I did. This

course has taught me a lot, as well as the professor, I have learned more from her in this semester

than I did in all the years of schooling before this.

As I got the first Short Academic Response, I thought, “Piece of cake” then I got my

grade back, and realized I have no idea how to write a paper. I used trash words, contractions,

did not know how to punctuate, silly right, and I continued this into my next SAR. For some

reason I just could not get the hang of things. In my second SAR it was even worse, more

contractions, more trash words, wrong or no punctuation, I used the word “you” like five times, I

mean come on. It seemed like the semester was just going to kill me. Then the third SAR, and I

did so much better, I worked on punctuation, no trash words, and no contractions, best SAR of

the year.

First major essay assignment of the year and I must write about what I want to be when I

grow up, well, kind of. So, when someone is reading something, the first thing they read is the
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title, guess what I forgot, yep, the title. Not a good start to an essay, but it turns out I did well,

but I did have to learn how to cite, because I had no idea how to do that. Each time I put the

source, I cited wrong, I just could not get the hang of it. Then the report essay, I completely

bombed it, I cited correctly, but I forgot to put them in quotes if they were word for word. I

forgot to take out trash words. This was by far my worst paper, this is the one I struggled with

the most and it showed. Our final paper, the formal analysis, I have not gotten the grade, but I

feel good about it. I enjoyed breaking apart the ad, it took me a while to get the hang of it, but as

soon as I did, it was a fun essay.

All in all, I enjoyed this semester. I know what I need to work on, I know what I need to

practice, and I know what I need to learn. If it were not for Professor Moore, I would be just as

bad a writer as I was when I walked in the first day of class. She has taught me how to write

better, how to cite, what words to use and what not to use. After this class I know how to be a

better writer.