Andrew Schow

Professor Jerri A. Harwell

ENGL 2010-067 (Final Reflection)
5 May 2016
Final Reflection
Admittedly, I went into this class thinking that it would be like every other English class I
have taken. My English classes havent necessarily been bad or unenjoyable, just bland. It
always felt to me that each teacher wanted to make sure I learned what they taught as it pertains
to their writing style. On the first day of class, I was proven wrong.
Professor Harwell started by having us write on an index card what we think our writing
weaknesses are, and explained to us that she would use these cards to help us improve in the
ways we thought we needed to improve. I immediately started to think about the criticisms I had
received pertaining to my own writing from friends, family and especially my mom. One of the
first things I thought of was my first attempt at writing fantasy fiction. I knew that I was a good
writer, and I knew that I had a good story to tell, so I proceeded to write it down knowing that I
would have a perfectly well written story on the first try. When my mom looked at it, she very
lovingly informed me that I needed to work on my writing skills. Citing my second paragraph,
she pointed out that it was only one sentence. In and of itself that isnt a bad thing, but this one
sentence paragraph took up half of a page, single-spaced. Needless to say, I was crushed. After
thinking about this experience, I wrote down sentence structure (fragments/run-ons) as one of my
weaknesses. It also proved to be the one that needed the most attention. I dont honestly
remember what else I put on that index card, but the feedback Professor Harwell gave on each of
my papers was fantastic and geared toward me and my writing.

While working on our memoirs, our first big assignment in the class, we were also given
assignments to revise first our introduction, then our conclusion. This was another assignment
that interested me, as she took what I knew of the term revise (which to this point had been
synonymous with edit in my mind), and turned it upside down. She gave us several different
methods for writing our intro, (such as narrative and background statements) and left us on our
own do determine which we wanted to use for our revisions. The only stipulation being that we
couldnt use the same method we used in our first drafts. Professor Harwell talked about how
much we would probably hate her after this assignment, but I didnt. I found this assignment to
be exciting. Learning how to truly revise my writing, making changes to it that would hopefully
improve it, sounded amazing. Once I got started, the actual revision didnt take long at all, just
about ten minutes or so. While I ultimately chose to use the same method with which I had
begun, my original work didnt go entirely unchanged.
My final assignment, a position/proposal piece, was supposed to be based on the topic of
my memoir. Coming up with a topic for my memoir had been hard enough as reflecting on past
experience doesnt always come easily to me. Suddenly I had to expand on my issue of concern:
terrorism. I had to take a side, argue multiple sides, and give a proposition for how to solve the
issue. Again, this seemed to be easier said than done, and I ended up with a piece that resembled
more of a research paper than an actual position/proposal. If I could do it over, I would have put
more time and thought into it, and really refined my paper down to a more defined issue, in this
case I would have chosen the issue of Islamophobia. I did most of the work on this paper at the
last minute, doing a very rushed job. I didnt have time to do any real revision, though I did
move around some of the points I used in order to help the paper to flow. Again, I wish that I
had given this piece the attention it probably deserved.

Something that I really liked about Professor Harwells class was the reading she had us
doing. It wasnt just busy work, something to give us for homework so she could say she did.
Most of the time, she had us summarize what we read, teaching us how to write a proper
summary, rather than the little blurbs on the back cover of a book that tell you what its about.
To make it better, we had to keep our summaries down to less than a page. I didnt think that
would be hard, but then I actually wrote my first summary, which had I continued beyond the
first page would have easily taken five. I really had to start narrowing it down to the more key
points of the chapter in order to keep it to a single page. What I liked about this style of
assignment is that it forced me to really learn the material, rather than to just regurgitate facts. I
can only think of three times when we werent asked to summarize what we had read. One was a
chapter on writing an introduction, another was a chapter on writing a conclusion, both of which
were followed by revisions of our work. The third, which may have actually been the first, was
about adding effective design to your papers, at which time we were required to add images to
our memoir which were supposed to support our paper, adding to our rhetoric.
The problems with my education through this class were all of my own doing. As
mentioned before, I didnt always give the class and assignments the attention they deserved. I
would choose to play games, watch movies or read a book of my own choosing instead of doing
my homework, especially when we were on break and didnt have class. The most productive
time during this class, I feel, was the multimodal project. I was assigned to be in a group with
two other students who had discussed armed conflict in some form. We made a slide show and
talked about certain issues associated with it: situation, reaction and prevention. Ultimately we
wanted to talk about the ways in which we could help to prevent future conflict, primarily
through improved education regarding the topic. The other members of my group did a fantastic

job presenting their portions, though I felt mine was a little rough. I dont tend to do well in
front of others, though usually I can hide it better than I thought I did. Regardless, I thought that
our presentation went well. Im just glad I had such an amazing team to work with.