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Ivan Valladarez

Professor Batty

English 101

11/12/19

Reflective Essay

This semester I've learned how to improve my skills as a writer and to keep an open mind

while writing my essays. This semester I had a diverse reading assignment that showed me a

different side to literature than I'm used to. I learned how to better structure my essays. Thanks to

the help I had from my English 101 class, the writing center and workshops at Valley College it

was easier for me to understand things that I’ve forgotten since I graduated high school. These

skills will be very helpful later in life as well as help me as I continue to pursue my educational

career. This class has showed some diversity in my assignments, how to better my essays by

organize my claims. This class taught me visual rhetoric, active reading, prewriting, drafting,

revision. As well as how to make a well-structured thesis and how to find evidence. With what I

learned throughout the semester and the workshops I participated in with the writing centers help

I learned how to become a better writer.

The assignments I have done this semester as well as the workshops I took this past

semester really helped me improve my writing skills as well as introduce me to new concepts I

haven’t read before. The reading assignment showed me a diversity in reading that I enjoyed. We

read “The Best We Could Do” by Thi Bui which is a graphic novel autobiography about a

Vietnamese women's life growing up with immigrant parents and she shares her parents' story

about living in Vietnam during a time of war and their story of immigrating to America. This

assignment showed me a diverse kind of reading that was nothing like the common literature that
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is usually written by white men that students are forced to read for homework. The assignment

also taught me about something that I had tough time fully implementing into my reading skills

which was active reading. Active reading involves taking the time to take notes as you read so as

I was reading, I took notes of what events were taking place and my thoughts as these events

happened. This helped me think about, digest, summarize, question, clarify, critique and help me

remember what I read. This was really helpful for two assignments one was a reading log where

I found quotes and commented on them. Also, an assignment where I had to discuss my own

family history. I also learned how to prewrite, find evidence, how to organize the essay, how to

incorporate evidence, and how to revise my essay due to the immigration essay where I wrote

how immigrants didn’t have to assimilate to American culture. I organized my claims by using

the 3-story thesis by stating the facts about the topic, I stated my opinion and I talk about why it

was important. I learned how to find evidence by going to the LAVC library website and there it

showed me how to get scholarly sources. I also learned how to incorporate that evidence by

quoting and paraphrasing as well as how to cite the pages. I also learned how to incorporate the

counter argument into my essays. I learned how important it is to put in the counter argument of

the subject you’re writing about and how responding to these claims can make your essay seem

stronger.

The workshops I participate in helped me remember some common writing things that I

need to better my essays. The topics we covered in those workshops were thesis statement and

refutation, business writing, subject verb agreement etc. These workshops not only helped me get

extra credit for my 101 class it helped with things we were going over in the 101 class like active

reading, proofreading and paragraph structure. If I needed extra help with my essays Puente had

an in-class tutor that was available to help who was also available at the writing center. I as well
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went to the writing center for help from the in-class tutor outside of class. The writing center not

only gave me a one on one time with someone that would help me with my essays but going

would also get me extra credit for my 101 class.

This semester the 101 class has been very helpful to me by improving my writing skills.

Although I still have some struggles with my writing, I hope that I can still improve it as it will

be useful in the future for any essay I’ll write as I continue my educational career. I feel a lot

more confident with my writing now. This semester this 101 class has taught me a lot more and

was a much more enjoyable experience than I had with my previous English classes.