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Ivon Ochoa
Professor Ditch
English 113B
8 May 2015
Reflection
English 113B was a very informative, time-consuming, and interesting class. It was
taught by Professor Corri Ditch which is a wonderful and excellent teacher. We covered lots of
criteria material and our main focus was culture diversity. We also used many of the reading
skills from the expository novel we were assigned. Writing was a major part of the class. Each
essay we wrote taught us different approaches of writing. Which helped my writing improve
throughout the process. Transitioning from high school to college I felt unprepared to begin my
college English class. The techniques from high school were useless. Beginning our second essay
I was ultimately lost within my own ideas. I didnt know where to begin. I constantly struggled
with my use of words. Which only resulted in bad grades. I is difficult to make my point and
answer the prompt. Beginning the second semester my writing skills were still quite poor. My
most recent essay was not the greatest. I mainly needed help in areas such as organizing my
thoughts and putting them down on the paper, creating an outline, and learning how to cite
correctly. I worked on all of these skills every time I tried to write a paper as the semester went
by. I felt I have improved in organizing my thoughts. Learning how to use an outline or
prospectus for an essay and learning where to find and how to cite reliable sources.
I had devised a plan for bringing together my ideas when beginning an essay. Before I
begin to write, I write down all of the possible thoughts I could have on the particular topic I am

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writing on as I am writing I organize them in an outline which can then help me see what each
paragraph will be about. My high school teachers would purposely call this process
brainstorming. I didnt think of utilizing this method, which seemed pointless in high school,
would help me out in creating an outline for my writing. I can now go off on as many tangents in
my head as I usually do when I am writing or when I begin typing, and still be able to write a
structured paper because I organized my thoughts before I began to write.
I do feel this class has improved my writing skills. I have much better grammar usage,
MLA doesnt seem so complicated any more and my thoughts are more organized. I also began
to pay more attention to my grammar errors like common mistakes with commas, periods, semicolons, and run-on sentences that can often not be recognized. My grades were very poor in the
beginning of the year, and also towards the end, they started to get a little better when I started
discerning my mistakes. Revising my essays has helped to understand more of that. I have more
confidence in my writing now however I do fear a bad grade still. My writing may not be very
good but it has improved and I am somewhat satisfied with my writing style.
I am amused to have accumulated knowledge I could refer to in the future. The templates
from the book They Say, I Say, for example, were helpful when I needed to transition from one
point to another in my paper. I also found the templates useful when I needed to state my point
once I was in the conclusion part of my paper and needed to refer back to what my argument was
in the essay. Multitasking was a skill I acquired in this class when wed have essays and group
presentations to focus on. It was difficult and I felt overwhelmed throughout the semester with
the assignments and I put myself in a position where I wasnt able to think clearly and truly
concentrate on just one assignment. Which is how/when I realized the transition into a university
and therefore now feel the pressure of a college student but Im also prepared to know what a

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professor expects from a college student. I tried immensely to push myself to get my work
completed and through this process my writing would improve. Transferring my high school
writing to college level truly is a journey I must take and pick up from where I leave off.