Ramos 1 Shirley Ramos Professor Vana DerOhanessian English 114 A 1 December 2013 Reflection Personally, English isnt my strong

suit. I struggled with the concept that, there is always room for improvement. In Lincoln High School, I was constantly told that I could do better; it made me feel as though everything I wrote wasnt good enough. I remember in LHS; one English teacher would always criticize and ridicule students passed the point of academia. The instructor would leave comments that were unnecessary like as if that would ever happen and keep dreaming on fellow classmates and my own papers. The approach she took to teaching discouraged me from applying the best of my abilities into writing a clear, thought out, and wellorganized paper. I eventually stopped putting effort into any of my work and began writing my essays last minute without revision or review. Fortunately, my first term in English 114 A at Cal State Northridge has taught me to use comments and notes from my professors to influence and develop my writing. My portfolio illustrates how my writing has drastically changed due to what I have acquired from my English class. I learned better techniques to organize, analyze, brainstorm, and how to find credible sources for essays.

Upon arriving in English 114 A the class was instructed to create a weebly page. It was a different approach to learning that I was unfamiliar with; I went from writing on a piece of paper to typing on a blog. In the beginning, my blog posts were long and repetitive, as though I lost my concentration and then restated my point. After a few posts, with encouragement from my classmates and professor, I began to get comfortable with my writing again; enough to where I

Ramos 2 can actually write what I wanted and not what was asked of me. Freely writing on my blog allowed me to brainstorm effectively and organize my thoughts by providing a stable base of uniformity. Blogging every other day in this course gave me enough confidence in my words to overcome my repetition without going off topic or losing my train of thought. When it came time to begin essays, I was hesitant; not because of my previous instructor but because I hadnt written a whole essay in over 5 months. However, my professor was critical when she explained the essay prompts and when she answered questions. Throughout the entire fall semester, we had three progressions. The first progression was compare and contrast, the second was text and media, and the third was argument and analysis. After not writing in so long, my first draft needed many improvements. I was glad that I wasnt only told to do better, but was also given advice on what to correct and avoid. The advice given helped me to understand the strengths and weaknesses in my writing. After I analyzed the mistakes I made in my essays, I no longer took comments and notes from peers or instructors as negative attributes of the writing process, but as helpful stepping stones to a more successful paper. The first progression was the easiest of the three because it allowed me to write about my own experience with transitioning from high school to college. The main challenge with this essay was the MLA formatting. In my high school, there was no emphasis on any type of formatting except for double-spaced and 12 pt. font. With the help from Purdue Owl I was able to understand the rules of MLA format and finish my essay without any other obstacles. Unfortunately, the second progression was more difficult; I had to use sources to support my claims and thesis. The topic itself wasnt hard, putting it together for other people to understand was the difficult part. My classmates helped me to understand my ideas clearer by writing more details and using a quote sandwich to transition my evidence; so it didnt appear that I was

Ramos 3 throwing in random quotes in my essay. In doing so, my writing became more accurate and easier for readers to interpret without struggling to follow along while reading. The most challenging essay for me would have to be progression three. The final essay required me to use an argument and analyze it using evidence and academic writing. I had to rely on previous class discussions, articles, readings, and outside sources to build my own topic and thesis. In the previous essay prompts, we werent given as much freedom, it was a little nerve racking because I didn't know where to start looking for the evidence. I relied on my teachers to supply me with credible sources; when it came down to me finding evidence on my own, I was utterly dumbfounded. Until, I used the CSUN Oviatt Library Database to narrow down the information I could use for my topic. Having to rely on my own capabilities and determination for progression three let me excel and develop in my writing abilities. I now know how to use a database to find credible sources to support my arguments and counterclaims and to rely on my own past knowledge to think up my own topics and theses. English 114 A has greatly improved my writing style from what it was, without my development my writing would be a jumbled mess of unorganized paragraphs of repetition without purpose or reason. Nonetheless, I am still not done with learning how to be a better writer; it is an endless process that can always be improved. I still need to expand on my ideas, vocabulary, learn more about MLA format, transitional sentences and check for grammatical mistakes more than once.