My reflection letter
To begin with, I am very thankful to my teacher, professor x for teaching me this valuable art of writing course which has been interactive and beneficial by all means. I remember how at the very beginning of this semester, our class students gave some ideas of what they expect to get from this course, here are some of them: better thinking and writing organization, writing structure improvement, learn to create stronger thesis statement, challenge to write longer papers, public speaking improvement and many others. All these ideas that turned into objectives of our course helped me to develop my communication skills as well as critical thinking and writing skills. Various in-class and out-of-class activities contributed to the further development of those skills, however there are three particular writing assignments that I feel were most influential in the process.
The first assignment paper required us to write a visual analysis essay. To be honest, this is the first visual analysis essay I’ve ever written. The purpose of this assignment was to analyze a painting of our choice and be able to explain educational value and the meaning the given painting conveys. Our second assignment was synthesis paper, the purpose of which was arguing our own claim and supports it with quotations and examples from the articles and essays we have read so far. By the way, the readings throughout the semester helped me to understand more about writing, helped become acquainted with another people’s perspectives and enhance my vocabulary skills. I really enjoyed most of the readings that were assigned. They served as a great source of information which I was able to refer to while writing my all three drafts. Our last paper, the research paper, was longer than the previous ones. We were asked to argue a claim relating to higher education and bring in proofs to support it while using certain templates and styles of writing as well as incorporating scholarly or academic sources. Throughout these three writings we were required to use the templates from the book “They Say: I Say”. As for me, I like this book not only for interesting stories, essays and articles in it, but also for these templates, which helped a lot to make my essays more meaningful by letting my ideas to flow smoother into the paper.
Since the time I have started to write my essays, I made a lot of changes in the revision process. I remember how I was proud of myself when I finished my first essay, and thought that it was the perfect one. But later I realized that writing is an ongoing process. After getting peer review letters and revised drafts, a lot of imperfections of my papers became visible. I worked hard to work on those imperfections.
I always experienced hard time in starting a new essay. I remember myself starting all my three papers with some banal sentences or obvious facts. But after the class in computer lab where we were introduced 4 types of effective introductions, I was so much excited and wished I have those sample introductions earlier instead of puzzling over a long time on how to start this or that essay. I will certainly incorporate writing techniques, templates and effective introductions we have learned so far in my future paper assignments. I still have to work on myself in both my critical readings and writing skills. I will continue to read and write for the duration of my life, improving upon and strengthening those skills I have developed and shaped thus far.