Ross 1

Raquan Ross

English 1101X

May 1, 2010

This Is It

Well this it is the final reflection that we’ve all been waiting for. I would like to start off

by saying that I had a wonderful time this semester in English 1101X. We did a lot of beneficial

things that will come in handy in the future, but we also had some fun doing it. So now this is the

final curtain call and overall I feel as though I have grown as a college writer. And I am just

relieved that I didn’t struggle too much in this course, because writing has been an Achilles heel

for me ever since I’ve gotten to high school. But like any obstacle that is in your life, you have to

work hard to overcome and conquer it, and this course has indeed brought me relatively closer to

getting over the imaginary hill that is writing.

And before I dive deeper into this reflection and self assessment, I would like to take the

opportunity to thank Dr. Rieman for being the cool teacher that you are and for presenting to the

class interesting and thought provoking topics that many of my writing classes have lacked in the

past. And also I would like to thank you for the thoughtful and constructive criticism that you

have given this semester because I really do take what you say to heart in order to reach my goal

of becoming a more competent writer.

But I have come a very long way from where I used to be as a writer. For example, I

always used to write with the sole purpose of meeting a page length requirement. Because all

throughout high school we had to write to a specific length on every assignment and so I would
 Ross 2

just ramble and include senseless information in an essay just to satisfy that length. But in this

course we have had only one assignment where that was so. And this page length freedom has

taught me that the content is what is most important and if you are able to convey your ideas

clearly and concisely then even a half page essay is acceptable.

I’ve also come to the realization that the revision process is just as important as any other

writing aspect. I came to this conclusion due to the Lu and Horner essay and also from observing

how effective the peer reviews have been this semester. Because before I have felt as though

peer reviews were pointless, for in the past people would not take this process serious and

therefore papers suffered. But this was one of the few classes ever where I actually valued the

advice and criticism of my colleagues because they understand how important this process is.

Another improvement for me is my ability to be my own biggest critic. Now I am able to

look over and review my own work for flaws and areas of improvement. This is so due to the

numerous reflections and revisions that we have done over this past semester. I literally revised

each of my essays at least three times and even more than that for a few assignments. But this is

not without point or just to be difficult, I’ve learned that this is the only way to guarantee a

refined and polished paper. Because before I would do a rough draft and go straight to the final

draft, but I’ve noticed that there never really was a final draft that I’ve had this semester, for even

the assignments that we have posted to moodle have been critiqued and sent back to us to

improve some more.

Overall I came into the semester thinking that I had very little room for improvement

when it came to my writing. Also I despised writing and I cringed on the first day when Dr.

Rieman announced that we will be doing some form of writing every single day. But as time
 Ross 3

went on I have come to enjoy this class very much and probably my favorite part of the class was

writing in our daybooks because it proved to be an outlet for all of my thoughts and got me

mentally prepared for what we were going to discuss in class.

Although there have been tremendous improvement for me, I still feel as though I am the

same in a few ways; mainly my conclusions and my inability to put my own spin on the

information that I put into my essays. This is so because I always try and make a conscious effort

to build a strong conclusion and give my insight but somehow it doesn’t always come to me. I

can honestly say that this is my two weakest areas that I still struggle with to this day.

Despite my weaknesses, I still am confident that this semester’s experiences will

positively affect my role as a writer in the future. Because as I have stated in the above

paragraphs I have come a long way, and the biggest thing that this course has done for me is that

it has restored a little bit of enjoyment that I used to have for writing. It is still preferably my

least favorite thing to do but now I have a little more confidence in my abilities as a writer.