First Reflection

First Reflection

My education from elementary school through high school is something I look back on with an overwhelming feeling of sadness and regret. Growing up, I was a very distracted child who preferred staring at a wall rather than paying attention to my teachers. Academics were especially hard for me to maintain any interest in, having grown up in a home with little support, and attending schools with overwhelmed educators, who aren’t always properly trained on how to work with children with learning disabilities. I was able to float by in school with grades that weren’t great, but not bad enough to get me in trouble with my parents. When I realized the ramifications of not taking my education seriously, in my eyes, it felt as if I was too late to help the situation. Due to that, I continued to be very lax about my schooling. Despite me taking school very seriously now, many times while working on assignments, I feel as though I lack many of the foundational skills that my peers have acquired throughout their years of dedication to expanding their knowledge through school.

English is one of my stronger subjects. I feel somewhat naturally inclined, and throughout my early education, it was the one class I didn’t feel worried about failing out of. That’s because I was able to procrastinate until the very last second, and still do well when I submitted assignments. As I got into more intense, time consuming classes as high school progressed, I realized that even though I was average in my writing skills, I wasn’t very fluent in the technicalities of writing. I had to do a lot of backpedaling in my personal time to teach myself things that many of my classmates already knew.

I credit much of my growth to the English 101 course that I recently completed. I was challenged in many ways that allowed me to open my mind, and writing to new ideas, methods, and methods of time management. For the first time, I have started taking notes consistently. This has helped me gain a more thorough understanding of the text that is being presented. I am a both a very visual, and tactile learner, so reading the text, and getting to see it again having written it out in my notes is extremely helpful when it comes to retaining information that I learned or reviewed in a module.

I have also been able to practice, and gain knowledge on the writing process as a whole. When writing previously, I mainly would free-write and hand in whatever I had completed. After my English 101 course, I was able to understand that free-writing isn’t bad! It is referred to as an invention assignment, and as long as you’re still editing and revising your work afterwards, it is a very helpful tool! I know that in the future I would like to continue to expand my knowledge on more ways to brainstorm, and learn many more invention assignments similar to the multiple that I learned last semester.

Drafting, and revising are concepts that I’m still new at practicing. I’m excited to participate in more opportunities to work on revision, and to teach myself to not be so concrete in my work. Until last semester, I have never been required to submit any form of rough drafts, and only the final products. That allowed me to procrastinate, and turn in very last minute work. Although regardless of submission requirements, I am no longer interested in being as lazy with my work as I have been before. I am eager to get more practice with my time management skills in this course.