Tia Spradley

11/15/2020

Dr. Elizabeth Cuddy

Reflection Essay

Let me start off saying that I love this class as a whole, and you, Dr. Cuddy is an

extremely kind person that made learning during this pandemic really easy. When given the

assignment to reflect on our writing, I had to re-read my writing assignments to see common

themes but I also had to look at this class as a whole. Personally, I didn't learn a lot of new things

from this class. However, this class gave me the opportunity to strengthen things I was

previously taught. I strengthened my planning skills and citing skills. Even though I have showed

growth in a lot of these categories, I still have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to

comprension of the prompt, grammar, and vocabulary,

I had an easy time with planning body paragraphs and outlines so when it came to

making a paper everything flowed with my outline. I was able to strengthen my citing skills

because I know how to cite other sources that aren't just websites. For example, in the definition

essay I learned that you can cite a word. This was so helpful because when doing assignments I

often define words and don't correctly cite them, so now I know the proper way to do so.

Even though my skills as a writer have improved, I still have a lot to learn when it comes

to expanding my vocabulary to make my essays sound more educated and improving my

grammar. From my 1st essay, literacy narrative, to my last essay, rhetorical analysis, I have

shown growth when it came to grammar and spelling errors. To add on, over time I pay attention

to word choice and even though I dont have the biggest vocabulary, in my essays over time it

appeared that way because I used better word choice overall. For example in my first essay,
literacy narrative, I used simple words like “glad” and other words that I wouldn't have chosen if

I would've re-write that essay recently.

I had a lot of simple struggles with working new websites, and understanding the

assignment. For our “Definition Essay” I had an extremely hard time using Harvey Library

because of the amount of steps it required. However, when I was able to better comprehend the

directions everything fell in place. But one huge struggle I had throughout every assignment is

understanding the prompt/ assignment. This isn't only with this english class but it has been this

way my whole life in english class. However, in this class I was able to better understand the

prompt but some took more comprehension skills than others. Lastly, something I struggle with

in every essay is finding out the right way to say my ideas. When I type I often have a hard time

wording my ideas and this causes the reader to often be confused when reading my assignments.

For example, in my literactive narrative essay when talking about why I wanted to write about

Assata Shakur I stated, “​The person she was really grabbed my attention, and for her to be also

female was really moving because back then females were not seen as outspoken and it was

rarely any big black female activist then” (Spradley). In this reading you can see my flaws in

writing because I didn't simplify the sentence to make it more readable and clear. If I was to

remake that sentence now I would've said, “The person Shakur grabbed my attention because she

is a strong outspoken black female activist that was known well in her community which was not

common during that time period”. That sentence makes it way easier to understand what I am

trying to say because I used less words and a better format.

In conclusion, in this class I was able to refresh my memory on how to write because

before school started I was barely writing in high school due to this pandemic. I have been given
the opportunity to become a stronger writer overall, and look forward to bettering my writing

techniques when it comes to the second semester and the future.