Ally Heyman

English1510

Sarah Haak

5 December
Reflection Statement

English 1510 was a class that I can gladly state helped me improve my writing. It made

me think outside the box and taught me specifically how to critically think. In the real world you

arent going to be given fill in the blanks. You are not going to have to just memorize certain

ideas, you are going to have to figure things out for yourself. Not everything will be given to you

directly that is why I think the skill of critically thinking is a necessity. Also, I think this class is

beneficial because it helps you to understand other writings on a higher level as well as your

own. By taking this class, I think it has also helped me with my reading skills. I am able to push

through hard writings and use skills that I have learned to understand the piece more efficiently.

A huge realization came to me that every writing piece can have multiple interpretations,

that there is never a wrong interpretation. People may think differently because of their own life

experiences. This realization really occurred to me after reading the piece Girl by Jamaica

Kincaid. In this specific piece of writing you can interpret it in multiple ways. Some might have

said that it was from the perspective of a mother speaking to her daughter about how to do

certain things or act a certain way, others might say that Jamaica Kincaid is having an internal

conversation with herself. This piece could have been describing how to live in a mans world

or maybe just how to be a lady because the suggestions of what to do seem sophisticated.
 When it comes to the themes that were used in this course I think the five analytical

moves were very beneficial. When we were assigned the first essay, the visual analysis I didnt

know where to begin. I was hard for me because in high school I was used to the typical five

paragraph essay. This began with an introduction, three body paragraphs and then a conclusion.

While that was not the writing style in this class. Learning how to write without those five

paragraphs was challenging but the five analytical moves kept me organized. At first it was a

little repetitive and felt kind of choppy but as I practiced my writing began to flow better. Also

by using the five analytical moves it helped me understand the texts we read and the significance

behind it.

Another theme that was very useful in this class was the research articles. I think it was

very helpful when we were brought into the library and taught how to find scholarly essays and

journals. This is a resource that I will be able to use in other classes too. I really liked this

especially when we put this into use for our perspective essays because I was able to research a

topic I was interested in. I think it is very beneficial when researching something you are actually

interested in, it kept me focus and made my writing much more enjoyable and less like an

assignment. Along with the research articles I think the peer reviews were helpful. I enjoyed

reading other peoples work and the feedback on my essays were helpful.

Inconclusion, I learned a lot in this class and I think it is a good thing that this course is

mandatory. It forces you to use different skills to analyze different types of texts. I think most of

the themes were beneficial and most of the readings were interesting! It also helped having a

great professor that made me eager to learn!