The Discussion

Today was my last day of school this semester. I had my english final where I turned in my reflections paper and we discussed the class. I am totally proud to have made as much progress as I have this semester. I feel like I've gained patience for writing, and for homework in general. I've learned how to word things better, how to do research, how to format citations and references, and how to not stress myself out about big assignments. This semester has been both challenging and fun. I made sure to tell my professor that. I gained a lot from Chase Grant, he was a good teacher and he didn't make everything complicated.

We all got a turn or several turns if we wanted to talk about our thoughts about the class. We talked about what we didn't like and what we did like. 

After class I had work. I just did a lot of cleaning really. More of the usual. It has been gloomy today. I hate cold rainy weather.

I got some chocolate today to celebrate the end of the semester.

I don't normally do this, but here is a copy of my reflections paper.

(Star) Liahna Rowberry

Chase Grant

English 1010-058

December 9^th 2016

            Throughout this semester, I have grown in many ways. As I was looking back on my first paper I remembered feeling very nervous. Research has never been one of my strong points. For this I did a paper on the EpiPen controversy. Mylan had been raising their EpiPen prices and I decided to research that. In this paper, I learned how to state the points of view from other people. Usually when I surf the net people’s different points of view are what I am most interested in. I combined that with my bad research skills to help make things work out. As I was looking the paper over one last time, I was able to correct incorrect words, remove unnecessary phrases such as “pretty good” from the wording, and get an overall picture of my progress. For this paper, I started to really work on my wording. Back at the beginning of the semester I feel like I was a bit long winded. This is a bad habit I get from blogging. This paper was just the first step to practicing getting to the point. I still have some work to do when it comes to talking about other people’s opinions, but throughout the semester I have grown to understand this process more. I have learned how to check my sources validity as well.

            As I was looking over MP2, I realized a lot of the shortcomings I had in MP1 appeared still, but in greater numbers there. This was more of a free write so my tendency to want to add rich detail and tell about everyone and everything just got out of control. I was also using excessive use of the phrase “pretty good” among others which I have forgotten. In the beginning, I wanted to talk about both my best friends, I even gave the background story for my best friend Rebecca and not only Amanda. Amanda, Brooke, and Devin were the important ones however, and so in the end I ended up cutting Rebecca for the most part. Another thing I was able to fix on my last revision was commas and a few incorrect words. Sometimes I don’t put in the best words and phrases when I am telling stories. I could still use some work, even on this paper I had to omit unnecessary words like “probably” and be more concise. To be frank, my current revision of MP2 is a lot more concise than it was when I first submitted it. I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten better and condensing since I wrote MP2. I am feeling more confident about my ability to write now. I have also noticed that I am becoming more aware of my mistakes.

            This class has been a real growing experience for me. When I first started, I was very nervous. This is how I usually feel about English classes. They are one of my biggest weaknesses. I was able to work on a lot of my weaknesses this semester. The first one came when MP1 came around. I learned how to use my ability to find other people’s points of view and include them in a paper. I also worked on some light research. This helped me get my head into research. I was ready from the beginning to confront that challenge. MP2 I worked on not being so long winded, and being more concise. MP3 was when some of my major struggles were faced. I started to learn how to carefully read a source and write about what I learned from it. I did MP3 on Tetris, something I am a big fan of. MP4 and MP5 were the major turning points for me.

           I learned about how to cite sources and how to format the cited works page. This has been one of the biggest problems with papers I’ve done in the past. I was also able to learn how to space a big assignment out and not try and do it all at once. I learned patience and how to read extremely hard articles very carefully. I learned how to make an outline for a big paper, something I’ve never made use of in the past, and I learned how to put everything together to demonstrate the collective accumulation of my knowledge over all the papers. Am I perfect at everything? Definitely not. However, I do feel better about my weak points. My wording and research skills still need work, but they are getting better. This class has been great for me and I am starting to put everything together. I hope someday I will conquer all my shortcomings when it comes to writing, I do have quite a few of them. I am very glad that I have been able to be here and learn so much. I have a lot more confidence than I did at the beginning.