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Daylon Cooper

Professor Beadle

ENGL 115

2 December, 2019

Reflection and Signs of Growth

Now that my English 115 class is complete, I can say that I have benefited from a vast

array of things, as well as reminders that refreshed my memory on terms and methods I was

already accustomed to. When my first essay “The Road to Happiness” graded and commented

on, I knew there was a lot of maintenance to be handled.

The biggest struggle throughout the course of this class was managing time. Organization

went a long way in preparing for the worst every writer faces: writer’s block, anxiety, brain farts,

the list goes on. Having a schedule to set time aside for my assignments and reading came a long

way. The Project Space essay specifically was a big learning experience for me. I did little

preparing with my free time, setting it aside to focus on my other classes since in my head, I had

enough skill to crank out a four-page essay easily. Receiving my paper back with all of my

professor’s notes told me that I had to put a lot more effort into my next essay. Project Text and

Project Media came with ease as I began writing the day it was assigned, which in turn left time

for: brainstorming, exploring sources, and reviewing. Though it was hard at times to make more

time for English as well as my other courses, I now know I can manage it.

I was under the false assumption that I could make a perfect essay by the deadline. Of

course this turned out to be far from reality when I saw my graded essays along with its
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comments. It hurt that I was not a well seasoned writer as I thought. The main source of this

issue was that I was not connecting my evidence to my thesis. It was confusing for me to be told

that I could write about anything as long as it was clear and tied into our source. Honing down

and focusing with one argument or thesis was a bit challenging on my first essay, “The Road to

Happiness. For example, in that essay I talked about the possible sources of where happiness can

begin. The prompt asked to determine which of the three sources given was the most effective.

Though my essay and analysis was strong, my arguments were unclear as to which writer gave

the stronger answer to happiness and why.

With these hardships came hidden strengths I was previously unaware of. For starters, I

did not imagine myself participating and presenting as much as I did. Excitement came over me

as I reaped the benefits of acknowledging my understanding of the lecture and reading. Not only

did participation help me put my knowledge into saying it out loud, but reassured me that I knew

what was being taught. For example, reading through our textbook “Understanding Rhetoric”

became more useful as I asked and answered questions in class.

There were many corrections that had to be made on concepts I wasn’t quite grasping.

Following MLA format seems intuitive enough, but quoting different sources (i.e articles, books,

movies, etc.) was one example. Taking the time to notice these mistakes were essential for

improving my scores.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses when it comes to writing. One of my strengths is

my voice. In other words, I feel comfortable in writing my essay as I would talk, and not in the

manner of a robot’s speech. This strength blossomed in this class; every essay that had been

graded always complimented my writing style, admiring my efforts of sounding exclusively in

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my own words. When I brought my second essay, “Even Love Has a Price” to my tutor, he

noticed a great improvement in specifically the wording of my essay, saying even though my

first essay read uniquely like my own, my second essay did that even more so.

In conclusion, my understanding and execution of writing has vastly improved over the

course of my English 115 class. Hearing repeated information from before can at times be

agonizing, but I found them useful in my written assignments. I took a different approach to

criticism, paying more attention to the things I had to work on and take compliments with stride.

By setting time aside for writing, brainstorming, and editing, I can only see improvement in my

future college papers.