FINAL COURSE REFLECTION

Luis Diaz Carrasco
Professor Gregory 
ENC1101
April 24, 2018.
When I started the class, I didn't have a concrete idea of what the course would be based on but assumed that it would only be based on writing tons of essays, when in reality that was not the case. Before taking ENC1101 this semester, I've previously taken two English courses back in my college in Puerto Rico in which I did pretty good in writing assignments. Because of my background experience in taking writing courses, coming into this class I felt that I had the necessary tools to write efficiently and be able to tackle all the tasks in the class, but it didn't turn out that way. Because I took those earlier courses in my freshmen year, now that I am almost a junior, after completing my assignments and getting my feedback I realized that my writing skills had faded away. All the work I completed in this course, which included strong responses blogs and essays about the theory of writing, made me aware of the flaws I had when it came to writing. After completing this course, I improved on skills of writing I lost and improved those; as well I learned new ways of writing, making me more versatile as a writer with better writing skills. In the class, I had the opportunity to work by myself and with others, which helped because sharing my work with others assisted me to notice mistakes I couldn't notice by myself. The concept of thinking rhetorically and using an analytical approach when writing was something that the class focused in depth. It helped me to improve my writing and constructing my essays, where I was able to provide clear thesis statements and develop coherent ideas/thoughts. In addition, I got to learn about ways of writing, different approaches used to persuade the audience, and the proper use of citations which I used to have difficulties with. Unit 1 was the first assignment I had to complete for the course. For this assignment, groups were formed and each group had to annotate, analyze and synthesize a text from different authors. My group was assigned to summarize and analyze Bonnie M. Warne's "Writing Steps: A recursive and Individual Experience", in which she talks about effective writing steps for students. In her text, she shares the struggle and difficulties her students had when writing. She made her point by arguing how students should not only follow standard writing steps but at the same time, they should go through their own individualized process of writing to better understand a useful way of writing that fits them. In overall the Unit 1 assignment set the basis for what was to come on Unit 2 and Unit 3. In Unit 2 I had to work by myself and write three strong response blogs comparing three different authors to the one I was assigned in Unit 1. This assignment was definitely the one that challenged me the most because I had to incorporate an analysis of my first author and three others. This assignment was difficult for me because it was exhausting to write three comparisons where each one had similar themes but still had to be individually analyzed and synthesized. I compared Warne, which was the author assigned for Unit 1, with Osborne, Strasser, and Branson. My feedback on these strong response blogs was not that good, especially on my first one, so in effect, this Unit 2 was a wake-up call that I had to work harder and practice more on my writing. For Unit 3 I took in consideration the feedback from my Unit 2 strong response blogs and did a better job on my theory of writing paper, where I discussed all I learned in the class and from my sources about writing. In overall, completing this course has facilitated my journey of becoming a better writer. I feel confident that the knowledge I gained in the class will provide me the needed background to be able to keep analyzing texts, and will be of use for the next step, ENC1102. Also, after completing the course I made corrections to grammatical errors remarked in my strong response blogs. But most importantly my vision of writing changed, as I just don't see it for doing assignments, but that it can be used for future occasions, whether it be for other written assignments or for my personal career.