Jacqueline Chora

Professor Adler
STACC English 1A
3 May 2016
A Display of my Work
As English 1A is coming to an end I have realized that as a writer I have improved, even
though there are still certain parts in writing in which I need to improve on such as organization
and sentence structures. However, most importantly this class has shaped the way in which I
think and approach situations due to the intriguing topics that we have discussed such as
metacognitive, discourse communities, Banking Concept, and Piphers ideas of writing, etc.
Though some topics were more critical than others because of the numerous possibly
interpretations, which were difficult sometimes to organize ideas and make a profound, critical
and analytical essay. Within each essay there were success and failures. Individually each essay
challenged my writing techniques, but also, provided feedback that has benefitted me.
One of the five essays that I wrote was another literary essay based on Bacas poetry. For
this essay, the focal point was to analyze Bacas poetry and give our own interpretation on his
poems. This type of essay was familiar because I did one on Bacas memoir. However, analyzing
poems is difficult because poems can have various meanings or simply because they are difficult
to understand. However, through this course I have learned and still trying to practice that there
is no wrong interpretations. Throughout this essay I tried to use my interpretations and make
sense of it.
For this paper, Power of Poetry the topic I used was cultural oppression; however, I had
to analyze how that was seen throughout Bacas poetry. Even though I have already written a

similar essay this was more complex because I had to analyze poetry. One of the strengths in my
paper was the interpretations, even though some could have been further explained and
connected to cultural oppression. My favorite poem to analyze was Rita Falling from the sky
this poem was interesting, but some lines were complicated to understand and to clarify. For
example, in paragraph three the line I Rita, who fell from the sky/ am the stone, carrying water
and onions (14-15) was complex because I could not figure out the meaning behind onions
and water. In spite the fact that it was a complex line to interpret I managed to find an
explanation and tried to make sense of it. I came up with the idea that the repetition of her saying
onions and water represented herself. According to myself, the onion represented her
identity, since onions have different layers and each layer represented each part that makes up
her identity. Also, I stated that water represented the sanity Rita carries with her considering
the fact that she has been ban from her home town and that the doctors think she is crazy.
Although there is no wrong interpretations I think my analysis of the repetition of onion could
have been further explained. With that in mind, overall it took me a while to get an interpretation
that I found interesting and that worked with my understanding of the poem. However, I did not
make the final connection of all my interpretations with the topic I was using, which was cultural
oppression. Because I missed this, my essay did not come together it should have.
From the four essays that I have written the discourse community paper was not my
strongest. This was one of the essays I struggled to organize my ideas because I had to focus on
the discourse of my career in an organization. My papers focal point was the discourse of nurse
practitioners in the Association of Oncology/Hematology Nurses. For this essay, I had to analyze
the writings, readings, and language usage of nurse practitioners in an organization. My intention
was for this essay to be informative and not sound like a book report, which I accomplished

successfully. However, my analysis of the writing and readings could have been further
explained. The fact is that my analysis were basic information and I did not further extend my
ideas, which made my essay complicated. Other than certain mistakes that were committed while
writing, the thesis constructed was satisfying unfortunately I failed to carry the topics throughout
my essay.
Even though I have written a research essay before, I found myself struggling to find
sources and incorporating the sources correctly to prevent fallacies. When I started to write this
essay I had my paragraphs organized; however, as I began writings the ideas were not
connecting. This lead to switching my paragraphs around, which confused me more and made
my analysis weak. One of the areas I need to be more cautious with is how I organize my ideas.
With that in mind, rereading will benefit because it will help be become more aware of what I am
writing and how it sounds. From my whole essay paragraph seven was not my strongest. It
needed to be more explained and I did not do that with this paragraph. As I mentioned before my
analysis and explanation was broad throughout this paper I did not expand on the ideas. The
analysis contained information already known, nothing new was presented to the reader.
Although paragraph seven was not the strongest, paragraph three was an intriguing paragraph for
myself. During my research of medical terminology I found this topic to be interesting. I was not
aware that in the medical terminology the word itself provides the location of an injury.
Although, this essay was not my strongest I can learn from the mistakes committed in this
writing and be more aware in the future when I write another research essay.
The fourth essay that we wrote was an in-class essay based on education, community,
race, language etc. with this essay we were able to use topics that were given to us or create our
own topic. For this essay, I decided to make my own topic, but still use one of the given topics.

My topic was to use the concept of I and Thou and connect it with education and identity. I
enjoyed writing this paper because I find the concept of I, thou, and other to be interesting;
however, it is a complex idea when trying to find connects. Even though this was an in-class
essay I was able to make a decent essay in the time period given.
From all the papers I have written this semester I find that I struggled with the thesis on
this paper. Even though, I had my thesis and the ideas I was going to write, it keep changing as I
began to write my essay. Towards the end I realized that the last part of my thesis did not connect
to the last paragraph I wrote, which lead me to change my thesis. The difficult part was trying to
fix my thesis in such a short time and make it work in my essay. Other than the thesis, there were
some ideas I would have liked to include in another paragraph because I felt like it would have
made a better connection. When writing in-class essays this is one of the obstacles I constantly
face. But, in this essay my strength was incorporating sources because the places in which I
incorporated sources made sense and I was able to back up the sources with information. The
sandwich method that we have learned has made incorporating sources simply with the format of
my own words, the quote, and then my own words again. I have found that this idea or format
has benefitted me not only for this essay, but for the other essays that I have written. From all
four essays this is the essay I enjoyed writing because of the topic I and thou, which in my
opinion is an interesting concept and the topic I would have enjoyed discussing more of.
Now that English 1A is coming to an end I have learned new concepts that I have not
thought of. The topics that we got to cover in this semester have all been interesting and
intriguing to learn. Hopefully in the future, when I am taking other English classes I can learn
more interesting theories such as theses. On the other hand my writing skills have gotten better;
however, I need to be careful with the way I write and how I explain certain topics. From all that

I have experienced I learned I need to make sure that I put to practice everything I learned in my
both semesters of English 100 and English 1A in order to become a better writer for future
classes.