Final Reflection

Final Reflection

The semester that I have spent in English 1101 has certainly been a learning experience. I came into the class expecting to learn something new but nothing necessarily mind blowing. Though, to my surprise, English 1101 has been much more than just reading and writing. Whether that be analyzing the country’s racial scope or learning how to quote correctly, new knowledge was acquired and things I had previously learned were reinforced. Some of the new things I have learned have been engaging in critical thinking through essays, multimodal assignments, class presentations, group projects, and/or discussions. I have had group projects before, but never such an in-depth service-learning project. There I learned how to write and gather ideas as a group as well as how to work with a group to accomplish writing goals. Now for something that I had already learned but was reinforced and even looked at in a different light would exercising rhetorical awareness while reading, analyzing, and composing. I had already learned about rhetoric and rhetorical devices from a previous English class but didn’t have much experience in actually identifying said rhetoric in actual literary pieces. With our analysis of Tatum’s article on racial identity all the way to that of Kilbourne's article on the misogyny in the advertisement industry, I am better able to identify rhetoric that is used by authors. I truly believe I have become a better writer as a result of this class. And seeing as though I’m not going to stop writing any time soon, I have to give it to this class for making me more well rounded in writing.