Lopez 1

David Lopez

Holly Batty

English 101

30 May 2017

Reflective Essay

Taking this English 101 class was a good experience as a writer and as a college student.

I was proud of myself to make it to 101 because I started college at English 21 and had to work

up the academic ladder. Im at English 101, but I want to keep going up.

It had been some time since i completed a book. Reading Still Water Saints taught me

and inspired me to try and write about the world around me. The surroundings I grew up on. That

is for sure one thing I learned about myself as a writer. I may want to write a book one day. It

will be a difficult task, but I feel like this English 101 class is a great start.

Some strengths that I learned about myself as a writer is that I can get into great detail

about paintings and fictitious areas that are in my neighborhood. Paintings like the mural I wrote

for the visual rhetoric essay this semester and areas like Whitsett Park. The park I wrote about

for my Ethnographic essay. Aside from being able to get into details about things and places, I

learned that I can my points across in a solid argument. I answered all the prompts properly this

semester. All my papers had one thing in common this semester, they all needed their thesis

statements to be revised.

That's the primary weakness I know I suffered from this semester. Thesis statements. In

one essay, the thesis was misplaced, the second essay, the thesis was good but the body

paragraphs didnt relate back to the thesis, and the last essay, my thesis was okay, but all my
 Lopez 2

body paragraphs too, needed to lead back to the thesis. A good thesis statement is usually always

hard to come up with. Sometimes you come up with it at the beginning of the essay, other times

it pops up once youve written the whole essay. Thats another tip I learned in Professor Battys

classroom.

Certainly no disrespect to any of my peers this past semester. I had a great bunch of

people. It was in the group projects that Professor Batty assigned us to participate in that I

learned that Im not that bad of a writer to the general population. Some of my peers in these

groups would listen to me and had faith in my work because no one told me I was wrong or

doing a bad job. Some peers didnt participate or come up with material the way I was able to off

the top of the head.

One thing I know for a fact I learned in this class that I hope to use in the future is the

quote sandwich concept. You introduce a quote by hinting the quote in the first sentence, you use

the quote, and then you talk about the quote. The tutor at the writing center, Becca, she helped

me with two of my three revisions, and she said that I used my quotes and introduced them well.

Another procedure that I learned to apply in the future is chunking assignments. Professor

Batty had us do essay proposals, a quick idea to write about. Sometimes the first subject we

choose to write about isnt always the best ones. She had us do annotated bibliographies that

were basically our future works cited pages. She also had us submit outlines that she said, were

the skeleton of the essay. The chunking process was one that worked. It was like you had 25

percent of the essay done today with the first assignment. Then 50 percent done when you

submitted the outline, and by then it was all about just bringing the chunks of the pie back

together.
 Lopez 3

Sometimes its the little things in life that matter the most. The little things I learned in

Professor Battys class consisted of learning that the works cited page must go in alphabetical

order, and to not start sentences with and. She tipped us to not capitalize prepositions in titles. I

learned in more detail the prewriting and revision that goes into the writing process. As well as

the annotation and reflecting that goes with the reading process, and we also learned the concept

of the reverse outline. The reverse outline strategy is how I wrote my visual rhetoric revision

reflection. I learned to always stress the so what. Meaning so what, why does this material

youre writing about matter? Who does it matter to? You have to link the so what to a bigger

issue to engage the reader. I learned that when stressing the so what you have the right to be

dramatic. The so what usually will go in the concluding paragraph.

The thesis statements in my reports this semester werent the best. They all needed work.

What I learned about thesis statements will help me out and prepare me for English 102 and

Communications 101 next semester. A good thesis statement should be one complete sentence. It

it is the main idea or argument of an essay. It lets the reader know what to expect. It is an opinion

that belongs at the end of your introduction paragraph. A thesis statement is not a question or a

fact it is a subject plus an opinion.