My Overall Reflection

Major Reflection

            As we are nearing the last day of English 101 I can honestly say that I have learned so much from this class and enjoyed it most out of all my other classes. I do love writing but never really have the time for it. This class allowed me to better my skills as well as learn new skills to try out in my writings.

 Writing is all about audience and purpose. By keeping that in my mind every time I wrote, I could tell I was writing a lot differently if I hadn’t been thinking that. It kept me thinking critically as to how I should write, such as: first, second or third person. I often had to change or remind myself of the word choice to use, due to the audience I was writing to. I also had to keep in mind if my audience knew anything about the subject I was writing about! So, I had to alter my writing to fit their needs. Getting off track is what I tend to do if I get really into my writing. Keeping the purpose and not adding too much “fluff” was hard for me.

Run-on sentences are my weakness. I tend to have a lot to write but when I put it all down on paper, its coma after coma. Sometimes, I tend to skip the coma altogether. Oops! I have learned to slow down and think before writing! I will still have some long sentences but it doesn’t mean they are run-ons.  I will turn my focus on sentence variety. This keeps the reading flow up as well as the reader interested.

My language in writing has always been fairly good. Tone was something else that I need to work on. I often found myself writing in mono-tone. Yikes! I think I have a very outgoing personality so, why couldn’t put that into my pieces? Because it was a topic that hadn’t interested me. I learned to put that aside because who would want to read something like that? You want your voice to be heard through the paper. That’s why, in my opinion, my word choice is my strong suit.

Figures of speech in essays are always fun to read. I enjoyed the lecture in class when we had the Hershey’s Kiss and wrote metaphors, similes and hyperboles about them.  I have experimented with them throughout my essays and journals. I find them to be quite humorous at times!  Having figures of speech in an essay makes it seem more upbeat and lively to the reader which makes it more enjoyable for them.

Of course my writings are not perfect, maybe, not even close. But what matters is I had fun writing them.  I still have some more learning to do in the future. This class has taught me a lot about author’s writings and taking that information and putting it into my own writing. It’s amazing what you can learn by other authors. Looking back at my first essay to my last one, I can tell that I was a rookie. There are some major differences! I am happy with the way I have progressed through this class.