For this blog post I’m going to write another reflection. In a previous post I wrote my midterm reflection. This time I’m writing my final reflection. To help me write this, I went and looked back at everything I have done in this class.
Coming into this class I was expecting the same thing as other english classes I have taken. I expected we were gonna read old books, and write about them. Instead, in this class I was able to do things I had never done before. The things I got to do in this class include making a website, writing scenes and being my own guinea pig. The first ever thing I got to do in this class was make my own website. This was an exciting experience for me as prior to this, I had never made a website. It was also exciting because it served as an online portfolio for all of my work. This means that in 50 years, I can come back and look at what I’ve done. The three main things on my website include my narrative project, my research project, and the blogs I made about them. My first ever project in this class was my narrative project. For this project I had to write about a scene in my life that had a big impact on me. In this class I learned that to make a scene, I have to use sensory details, dialogue, and symbols. To practice this, I used my blog to write scenes. In my blog posts I wrote scenes including me going to walmart, riding a bus, giving a presentation, and more. I liked this because although I’ve read scenes in many books before, I had never wrote a proper scene myself. That was one of my projects. The other project on my website is my research project. For this project I was introduced to the “three good things” gratitude process. For the project I had to write a paper on whether or not the process improved my well being. In order to do this I had to experiment on myself, doing something I had never done before, and that is being my own guinea pig. I used my blog to practice writing about this project as well. I practiced writing all the sections of the paper on my blog. Those were the projects I experienced and put on my website. Something I said before was that I appreciated that this class allowed me to do things I had never done before. There are two other things. One of them is that I like and appreciate that everything I had to do in this class was centered around me. I was the main character in every project and blog post I wrote. For the narrative project, I wrote a scene that was about my life. I was the star of every scene I wrote in my blog post. For the research project I didn’t have to research some famous person, place, or event in history, I had to do research on me. That is something I’m grateful for. The other thing I’m grateful for is the final exam. I’m grateful that there was no final exam. In most of my classes I have been taught something and then tested on it. In this class, instead of being tested on what I learned, I was able to apply what I learned in projects and blog posts. Those were my experiences in this class.
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For this blog post I have written a midterm reflection for myself in 3rd person. The purpose of this reflection is to make me better for the rest of the course. To help me write this reflection I used the reading Genres in Academic Writing: Reflection
It is the end of week eight in this English Composition Course. That means half of the semester has gone by. For half of a semester Ani Tapia has had many experiences. He has also learned many things from these experiences. One thing Ani has learned about are symbols. To help him learn he read the reading “Hills Like White Elephants” (Ernest Hemingway). While reading this Ani was able to see the symbols Ernest Hemingway used. For example, he saw that Ernest used a table to symbolise an operating table, or gray clouds to symbolise a bad event. However even with readings like this, Ani struggles to stay consistent on developing symbols in his writings. Some of his writings have clear symbols, while others don’t. An example of when Ani used symbols was in his blog post titled “Composing a Present Scene with Dialogue and Symbolism”. In this post Ani used a broken wheel on a shopping cart to symbolise his tendency to easily give up. On other writings Ani struggles to develop a good symbol. For example, in his blog post titled “Composing a Past Scene” he tries to symbolise the crumbled relationship between him and his mother by using crumbled green grass, and green symbolising growth. Another thing he struggled with was finding topics to write about. Since most of his writing has been about his life, he has struggled to come up with topics other find interesting and read instead of skipping through. This has resulted in last minute topic changes in more than 95% of his blog post including his narrative project. Fortunately, it hasn't all been negative. There have been some positive experiences. Throughout the course a main learning topic has been creating scenes. Through readings like “Making Scenes in Memoir” (Lee Martin) Ani has learned that to make a scene requires using sensory details. He’s also learned that to get a reader's attention, he has to start his writings by diving straight to the scene and giving context later. Ani has shown this growth through out his blog posts and narrative project. In his early blog posts like “Presentation Day” didn’t dive straight to the scene but rather begin by describing the setting. This is not the case with his narrative project in which Ani goes right in. Going forward, Ani has made a couple of intrinsic goals for himself. His first goal is to keep practicing the stuff he struggled with in the first half of the semester. This includes developing more symbols in his writings. Another goal is to find better motivation. Ani has missed a couple of deadlines this semester which shows that his current motivations might not be enough. These were Ani Tapia’s experiences through out the first semester. I have made a found poem for this blog post. A found poem is made by taking words or phrases from text and arranging them to forum a poem. I used my narrative project to for the poem. My narrative project is about how I became shy. OH PLEASE DON’T BE ME, PLEASE DON’T BE ME!!!” I was saying to myself. “Ani” she called out, “Come up to the board.” I felt my heart drop to and my cheeks turn red. “NOOO” I was eight years old. It was 3rd grade in Berat Albania in 2008, and the 2nd day of English class. It wasn't a class where you would learn about literature and read books. It was a class where you would learn to speak the English language. Facing in front of me stood my English teacher. She was blond, skinny, tall, and in her 20’s. To the right of me was a big classroom of 25 people and they were all staring at me. With an upset look on her face she asked me “Pse je vone dhe pa uniformen” (Why are you late and without your uniform?) “Sepse po bie shi perjashta” (Because it’s raining outside.) “Edhe cha pastaj, ata nuk jan vone.” (So what, they’re not late.), she says pointing at the rest of the class. “Ata jan ne koh” (They’re on time.) “Me fal” (I’m sorry.) As I looked down at the floor feeling sad I felt her pen smacking the top of my head. “Kjo nuk lejohet” (This is unacceptable.), she said, “Shko mbrapa classes dhe ri tek cepi” (Go in the back and stand in the corner for the rest of class.) As I walked embarrassed to the back I heard her tell the class “ Mendon nga qe po iken ne Americ, mund te bej cfar te doj.” (Thinks he can do whatever he wants cause he’s moving to America.) “ Nuk eshte e vertet ”(That’s not true.) “ Qepe gojen dhe vashdo “ (Keep your mouth shut and keep moving) Later in the class the teacher started to call out students to write draw and write the name of shapes in English. I knew some shapes but not all so I was hoping I wouldn’t get picked. I felt my heart drop and my cheeks turn red as she said “Ani… ajde visato dhe skrual rethin ne Anglisht tek drasa.” (Ani.. Come draw and write the circle on the board in English) “MOS” (Oh no!), I said to myself. “Un sedih cfare eshte rrethi ne Anglisht” (I don’t know what a circle is in English.) I went up to the board barely moving my body and grabbed the chalk and drew a circle. Not knowing what to write below it I took a guess. Lookin at what I wrote the teacher said “ Aje serioshizht? Ti shkruaj katror, Square esthe katror jo reth o budalla.” (Are you serious? You wrote square. Square is a square not a circle you idiot.) I was so uncomfortable not just by this, but by the sound of laughter coming from the class. She then said something that I remember clearly to this day “ Wow, dhe ti do ikesh ne Amerik.”(Wow, and you’re moving to America.) With a tear rolling down my eye I walked back to the back of the class. Do you think the narrative provides enough descriptive language to create a compelling found poem? not really If not, how do you plan to revise the descriptive language in the narrative? I plan to look at the words I used and find better synnonims for them. Do you think the descriptive language more so creates a setting or delivers the subtext of a theme? I think it creates a setting but not much of a theme. In revision, will you focus on using description to develop more of the setting or more of a theme? I will focus on using description to develop more of a theme. |
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