Catherine Glinskaya Mr.

Anthony Borrero Engl 1102 04/30/2013

Final Reflection

Looking back and assessing task, performance or process has always been a hard task for me. Although I like to analyze and break down whatever it might be to components, I do not find a great excitement of breaking down whatever has passed, especially if it concerns my own progress. I seem to enjoy the delight of the current situation, if it is good and relish it, or to analyze it and find the solution to it. Nevertheless, in this reflection I will try to overcome my fear of going back and will analyze my progress in the course, my overall standing, identify the drawbacks and mistakes, as well as show success. Reading it should help the reader to see my process of becoming stronger and better writer, in a similar manner how the family photo album tells its story. To start with, I should say that I had a feeling that a lot of people in my class were quite embarrassed and, probably, intimidated after the first meeting. I have noticed that our classroom has acquired more room during couple of first weeks, although it had not expanded or changed in the size. Apparently, it happened due to the fact that some students dropped the class. Actually, I do not find that a bad move. Less students in a classroom gives more chances for your personal growth, and in the terms of the course more attention from your peers and instructor. Closer attention

helps to produce better work. Besides, I already knew my instructors style of work. Therefore the first class activity a journal entry did not seem bizarre. In fact, it helped me to develop several theories of what could possible be there, assess the situation, using the acquired knowledge about the professor, and logically prove or disapprove the theories. The task serves as a trigger in applying logic to the course, so-to-speak, to use theory in reality. I previously mentioned that I knew the instructors style, and was excited about the possibility to express myself and grow as a writer, and although I had some expectations about the course, its pace turned out to be quicker that I could have imagined. The course had quite a tight schedule, and the density of the assignments seemed to multiply further down the road. I think it is the coin with two sides: although I faced challenges during the course, trying to keep up with assignments and producing good work, it also does not let me drop out of the schedule and loose that writing mood. It seemed like we jumped right into that mood with the Cupcake Phenomenon forum post. At least I know I did. I remember how I struggled with forcing myself to start writing. Nothing surprising there: it was just the first week of school. We, as students, were waiting for the right, studying mood to come, and did not expect that on the first week of school. Though, understanding that the start is very important, I made a switch in my mood and turned the trigger of the inquiry on to a higher degree. I was not intimidated to ask questions and think out loud. Then we, as class, plunged into the exploration of commercials. I view that as a great way to start questioning yourself as a person, to question society and the motives the advertisement bares. In my reflection on the Frito-Lay commercial I not only asked questions, but tried to find the answers to them and connect the pieces of

the puzzle, i.e commercial, together. I, again, strived to analyze the commercial and its value, to trace the ways the images and words put together can influence our desires and choices. Moreover, I found that assignment interesting not only from the English course standpoint. Majoring in business, I viewed that as a great opportunity to assess the commercial and break it down from the perspective of likeliness to the customers. On the whole, the analyses of one particular commercial opened the eyes on some of the aspects companies use in advertisements to attract customers. Therefore, most likely that the life of each of us is more or less influenced by commercials. So I went off on exploring its influence in my life, expressing the thoughts and results in the Exploratory Reflection. Despite my interest in the topic, I needed to remember about three key aspects while writing it: storytelling, knowledge sharing and questioning. Moreover, I was limited to reflect only on three topics, while I had more than 30 to choose from. I narrowed down the list of a dozen, but it was still hard to select only three. Nevertheless, I made up my mind on the ones I would like to talk about, and started the reflection with making a plan. I remembered the importance of the plan from the previous course, and simply could not disregard it. Since a plan is a good start of any piece of writing, an outline of the information a writer would like to cover in that piece is another step. Moreover, for me it simply bears a function of writing down my thoughts and ideas, and organizing them right at the moment they are born. In that case I am sure I do not loose any important or interesting aspect. It also helps to escape the fear of a blank page, when the emptiness of the page or a screen oppresses me and imposes the feeling that a blank screen means the emptiness, the non-existence of my ideas.

In that case, if everything was working out, and all the measures were taken to avoid any circumstances to prevent me from writing, the reflection might have seemed a piece of cheesecake served with a strong coffee in the morning. Well, not really. The coffee was served, but without sugar and milk, and I cannot stand bitter coffee. The bitterness was in the thesis, or the purpose statement. It always was, and I fear, always will. The reason for this I find in my desire to make it as clear as possible, and at the same time as unnoticeable as a purpose statement can exist. I want my reader to know what I will pursue in my writing, but not to have a feeling that they have already figured out the course of my thoughts and my findings. But Exploratory Reflection was not yet the major piece of writing I struggled with thesis the most. I believe I was able to overcome this struggle in the Reflection and made the direction and questions clear to the reader. I also believe that I succeeded in evaluating my existing views, opinions and experiences and questioned the origin and influences of some in that piece of writing. I explored the chosen topics: the medias impact on health and wellness, beauty and body image and socioeconomic status, health and wellness. Since if to pursue all of these topics in a distinctive detail, it would grow into an enormous paper, I did not go into the depth of these topics, and remained ankle-deep. Therefore that paper might seem to be underdeveloped. Nevertheless, I tried to think about the impacts beyond general observations and organized the inquiries and observations on logical and engaging manner. Subsequently, after being done with one exploration, I plunged into another. We started to work on Prezi. Since I was interested in the body image and advertisements, the influence of opinions presented in TV, magazines and fashion shows, I picked one that responded to my interests. Soon enough I realized that I can already claim myself an expert there, since I knew all the answers to my inquiries

beforehand, and everything seemed to be too obvious and boring to pursue further. On top of that, I could neither provide credible sources, nor find the ones that were really related to the topic and provoked the reader, boosting millions of questions. Not a single question arouse after long research, except for one: shouldnt I switch the topic? That was the turning moment in the course. That is where the real fun began. Once I realized the necessity to switch the topic, and once I changed it to the safety of cosmetics, I found myself interested in the questions I was pursuing, and, most importantly, found myself with the opportunities to raise the questions within that topic. The further I researched, the deeper and broader I went with the inquiries. Although I had multiple sources to choose from, I left behind ones that seemed not too credible, or those that could not really serve the purpose of the bibliography and would distract me from the main course in the process of the research. Although I was able to pursue quite a thoughtful inquiry in the chosen topic, and build up connections between the articles, it did not seem to be broad enough. I realized that driven by fear to strain from the main course of the inquiry, I cut all the possible leads to slightly different, but still related topics. As a result, I added another half of my Prezi project in about 2 days left before the due date. And only after that I felt satisfied with the work been done. Yet, another inconvenience I encountered while working on annotated bibliography, was Prezi itself. It gave me a lot of frustrations, since I could not tame it. It simply didnt work the way I expected it to. Nevertheless, somehow agreed to play by the rules of the system, I was able to complete the annotated bibliography and present the articles and connections in a logical order. Knowing that our next piece of project is based on the bibliography, I tried to organize the Prezi in a way that will

help me to move from topic to topic, from one lead to another in my Inquiry Narrative Essay. The effort I put in organizing and laying out Prezi returned with benefits while I was working on the essay. There I chose to write a two-passage introduction, which I think contributed to the piece of writing I produced. Despite all the preparation for the essay another challenge arouse. Although I have come across citing the used sources, I have never had to cite the Internet sources or videos. I spent enormous amount of time, compared to the little amount of task it represents, educating myself on the proper way of citing them. And I still have the feeling that I might have missed some minor details. Well, at least I will not be accused of plagiarism. Indeed, I had just enough time to complete the essay, before we had a mid-term conference. For that event I composed a Mid-Term Conference Reflection. I find it extremely helpful to stop for a while, look around, and assess my standing and evaluate my working progress. The reflection helped me to identify my drawbacks and to voice my successes as a writer in the context of inquiry. It also helped me to look at my work from aside and find the way to correct the mistakes and to see whatever I need to continue on doing. After a short break I came back to find myself puzzled again. This time I was working on the introduction to our third major part of the course the C.A.P. project. Earlier in my reflection I mentioned that I struggled with the purpose statement. But my main battle on the thesis field was happening here. Although I had my Proposal ready, and identified the main topics of the conversation and the audience, I could not produce a strong introduction. It was too broad, too clumsy and missed the majority of the points that I was supposed to meet writing the introduction. That was pretty much a failure. Now, I treat it as shitty first draft. But back then I could not

move further and was stuck in my paper. I had a feeling of being stuck in an elevator, while trying to get on time to an important meeting. I realized that I could not move forward until I produce a clear purpose not only for the reader to know the course of my paper, but for myself to direct my thoughts in a natural and organic manner. That is why I volunteered to when have the introduction reviewed in class. I knew something was wrong with it, but I could not identify the exact components and find the solution to the problems. And the class review helped tremendously to recognize them. Later I reviewed and rewrote it at least three times. Nevertheless, it wasnt until our optional group conference when I started feeling good about my introduction. And once I casted the worries about it away, the work boosted, and by the 3rd C.A.P. draft, the essay grew tremendously. At the same time, I faced another obstacle I needed to organize my paper. To me it has never been a question about how to find ideas or the question of vivid and engaging writing. It has always been the question of structure and transition between ideas, how to clearly and smoothly express correlation between them. Again, group conferences as well as multiple hours and previous work was like an aid to me. Besides, I am still thankful to the instructor who provided the handout about the transition. Even now, I looked at it to find a proper transition for one of sentences in this paragraph. Prewriting and working on the obtained information also helped me to structure the paper well. It was not without a purpose that we had 3 drafts for the C.A.P project before we submitted it. Altogether during this course I produced a lot of pre-writing and have competed a lot of process work. No wonder why: I was willing to go into the depth during the exploration of the chosen topic, and I learned from the previous course that pre-writing is extremely helpful. Although I was sure that by

completing Prezi and writing the Inquiry Narrative Essay I had quite substantial amount of information and resources. However, I felt the need to search for more information, while working on the C.A.P. project. Once I completed and reflected on it, I realized that we still had another assignment that I viewed a major, too. Presentation on the project gave me another chill. I have not been presenting in front of a crowd much, besides, I felt a little bit tired of the topic. As if I have been pressing down the wine for too long, and all the good has already been sucked out of the grapes. Nevertheless, I needed to find the way to engage with my audience, give them knowledge, not just throw the information at them, but educate them in the question of safety of the cosmetics, and leave them with the desire to change something in their own lives. And compress it to five minutes, possibly the shortest time on earth when you have to say a lot. Meanwhile, I dare to hope that the presentation was successful. In addition to all major assessments and struggles, which I believe overcame with success in majority of the cases, I would like to add my participation in class and work with peers. I actively participated in and outside of the classroom. I raised good and though provoking questions and had my opinion voiced. I updated my instructor with all the major changes that have been happening during the course of my work and was seeking the help outside of the classroom by attending optional group conferences. I tried to help to the best of my abilities on the per review session, that I personally found extremely helpful, and tried to be a merciful, but still helpful critique. Even if I could not be of help for them in the classroom, I took time outside of the schedule. I remember when we ran out of time on one of our last peer review session, and did not go through Zachs draft, I reviewed it on my own and sent him

my feedback with possible improvements. Later he said that it helped him to a great extend. All in all, how one of the questions in the evaluation questionnaire says, I am satisfied with the course and the progress I have done throughout it despite, or probably, due to the challenges I faced. This essay might look more like a memoire rather than a reflection where one is supposed to discuss their grade and brag about how good they have been. Yet, I would like for the reader to feel like they are reading something personal, because it is. All the experiences and knowledge I gained during the course will remain with me. The fact that I was able to apply everything I learned proves that I, in the end, became a better writer. And theres not better evaluation of someones work that acknowledgment that they have achieved their goal.