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Jacobadam Moreno

Dr. Sharity Nelson

ENGL 1301 124

6 December 2022

Final Reflection

Well, this is it; hopefully, the final reflection essay I will be writing for ENGL 1301. I

will not hesitate to say that it was a painful journey both mentally and physically, mentally

because I despise writing essays, and physically because the time right now is 3:22 AM. At the

same time that this journey was painful, it was pretty helpful, wakening, and for some reason,

fun. Before I move over to the questions I have to answer, let me talk about myself and my

history with the language.

As people can tell, my name is Jacobadam; for most of my life, I thought it was Jacob

Adam, but no, it goes together; despite being born in the U.S., I lived the first 14 years of my life

in Mexico. My first language is Spanish, but I can also perfectly speak, understand, read, and

write English, but the funny part is that I did not learn it because of my English class; it was not a

class to learn the language; it was simply a class in the language. So how did I learn English? By

playing video games; now, the only reason they helped is that when I was a kid, all of my games

were in English, so I did not understand anything they said; fortunately for me and my Brother,

who is on the same page as me, our Mother can read the language. While most games we had did

not need to be translated for us to play, our favorite game is an RPG, a genre known for having

thousands of dialogue boxes. So our Mother would translate the language while my brother or I

would be playing, and before I knew it, I was the only 6th grader in my elementary that was able

to read and understand English; I eventually learned to write and speak. Where am I going with
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this story? Nowhere; I just thought it would be fun to talk about my history with the English

language for the Final Reflection Essay of the 1301 class, and no, I do not care if I get penalized

for this section.

Back to the topic of the Reflection, I find English 1301 to be an interesting class because

of my previous experiences with English classes. I already talked about Mexico; it is not to learn

English; it is just a class in English, but when I got to high school, I had to move to the U.S. what

the classes taught me was how to write properly; the difference between being formal and

informal, how to properly use punctuation, and some other things. I did not know what was

waiting for me at the top of the mountain, that is, the University; all I knew was that the English

classes were mainly about writing essays, so I was not looking forward to it. After the first few

weeks, I was surprised; the class was not mostly about writing essays but about writing in

general. What it taught me was not about writing properly but about different kinds of essays and

how not to plagiarize. While I still ask the question I ask myself in all of my other classes, why

do I need to know that? I do see the importance of knowing those things. I learned that not every

essay is written the same way, and if someone approached every essay with the same mindset,

they would not be able to produce good results. Plagiarizing is something that, even if it is

accidental, can hurt either the original one or the copy; if someone plagiarises, they are stealing,

and they should be ashamed of themselves. Now for how I see accidental plagiarizing, imagine

making something that everyone would be proud of, but it turns out someone already made it.

This leads to two scenarios, either everyone knows of the first person and thinks that the second

person stole it, or no one knows of the first person, and only the second person knows about

them; a sense of guilt will eventually start eating them. These are the things I learned from my

ENGL 1301 class, and I think these are things that everyone should keep close to the heart so in
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the future, they do not have any problems with essays and they do not plagiarize someone else by

accident.

Some rhetorical choices I made when revising was to make sure there was nothing wrong

with each essay when it came to grammar; to do this, I used Grammarly, which is a very helpful

extension for chrome; it automatically points out any errors, and by paying a monthly fee, it can

help make sentences more clear and even suggest changes that can make a sentence better.

As for each essay, for the first one, I completely came up with a new thesis and adjusted

the body paragraphs to make them connect better to the new thesis; “However, Panda makes use

of non-common components, such as the mention of a verified user, a quoted tweet, and a formal

tone, to demonstrate that this event is a sign of Nintendo finally acknowledging its fanbase.”

(Moreno “Essay 1 Revision” 1). Overall, I think this new thesis is much better than the one for

the final draft because it is more focused and more specific than the previous one. For the second

one, I only concentrated on making the minimum amount of changes because there was not a lot

wrong with it; “The size of the elements, the way they are positioned, and the intensity of their

color show the viewer how the central aspect of the game is not the story nor the protagonist but

exploring the big open world that the game has to offer, especially the sky, the main new

attraction.” (Moreno “Essay 2 Revision” 1). The only issue I had with revising this essay was

that I had difficulty staying within the minimum word count requirement, so in the end, I had to

add a few words throughout the essay. I did not pay too much attention to revising the third essay

because I was aware of the fact that we were going to have to change 25% of it, so I left errors in

it on purpose and then fixed them for the revision; “Still, their use of ethos, logos, and some

pathos can appeal to anyone, especially neuroscientists.” (Moreno “Essay 3 Revision” 1).
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When designing the website, I did not bother to put more effort than what was required in

it. The only reason I am making the website is that it is required for the final of the ENGL 1301

class; “If I were to go to a library with thousands of best-selling books, I would probably be

interested in only one” (Moreno “Essay 3 Reflection” 3). As the quote says, if I am in a room

with many books, I will only read the ones that interest me, and this also applies to games; I

would only play the games that I have fun with if I were in a room full of best-selling games.

Should the website have been optional, mine would not exist. I do not like doing more than is

required unless I have fun, and making a website because I have no choice is something that I do

not enjoy, but I know I have to do it in the end, so I still do the minimum.

Honestly, none of the homework or in-class activities influenced my revisions or the

making of the portfolio. For the homework, this might be because I did not finish all of them,

and for those that I did, I did pay too much attention to them; I was just concentrating on being

done with them. “Again, considering the timing of this, I don’t even want to imagine the

comments for essay 3” (Moreno “Essay 3 Reflection” 3). As for in-class activities, I have no

idea; I paid attention during them, especially because I felt like I had to pay attention, but when

none of them came back to my mind while revising or making the website.

This class taught me two important lessons that I can apply in all of my other courses.

The first and most important one is that I should never take the time I have for assignments for

granted; “Considering the timing of when I’m turning this in, the comments I am getting for

essay 3 are going to be negative, painful, and true” (Moreno “Essay 3 Reflection 3” 3). This is an

issue I have ever since middle school, and I still have it with me to this day; I do everything at

the last minute, regardless of how heavy the assignment is. For one of my finals, I did it 3 hours

before it was due, and even this one, I am doing it hours before the deadline. Something else I
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learned is how to analyze different things properly; “The only class where I think I can apply this

knowledge is my COMM class, and the way I can apply it is by analyzing the presentations that

my classmates during speech days” (Moreno “Essay 2 Reflection” 1). So far, the only class that

required me to analyze something is COMM, but I am sure more will show up in the future.

What I learned in this class that I cannot apply in my other courses is how to write a

Genre Analysis Essay, a Visual Analysis Essay, and a Rhetorical Analysis Essay. “What I learned

in Essay 3 that cannot be applied in other courses is how to write a rhetorical analysis. This is the

same situation I mentioned in Reflection 2 … The only course I have that requires me to write

about a specific kind of thing in a specific way is my ENGL course. I have only written 2 essays

outside of ENGL, and both were not as specific as the one in ENGL 1301” (Moreno “Essay 3

Reflection” 2). As I said in the quote and the other reflections, none of my other classes required

me to write essays in such specific manners. My COMM class had me write a Speech Analysis

Paper, which is similar to a Rhetorical Analysis Paper. However, the requirements were more

forgiving than the Rhetorical one, and I did not need what I learned from ENGL.

I think my writing strengths have improved a little over the semester, but I do not think it

has been by a lot. “One of my strengths is that once I start writing a paragraph, I know how to

keep going and finish it in less than 20 minutes.” (Moreno “Essay 3 Reflection” 2). I am sure that

the speed at which I write essays has increased across the semester, but I am not sure how much

it has increased. My weaknesses remain the same, “the difficulty I have come up with what to

say for a paragraph” (Moreno “Essay 2 Reflection” 2). I still struggle with coming up with the

words for a paragraph when I do not know what to say; on the bright side, once I start, I can get

it done pretty quickly.

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When I started making the website, I thought the most challenging aspect would be

making the whole website, but I was wrong; Weebly made it easy to create the website. Creating

the website became the least challenging aspect; I got it done within an hour once I figured out

how it worked. ”The least challenging part of the essay was actually writing it because once I

found something interesting, I knew how to write about it” (Moreno “Essay 3 Reflection” 3).

This can be applied to creating the website; once I found out, I knew how to do it. If I exclude

writing the Final Reflection Essay from “making the website,” then the most challenging aspect

of everything was finding the previous essays on Chromebook, something that was not difficult.

Unlike the previous essays, I do think my identity as a writer has changed a lot with this

essay. “My identity as a writer did not change as much as it did in essay 2 and even less as it did

in essay 1” (Moreno “Essay 3 Reflection” 3). I do not know how it changed, but something felt

different while I was writing this. Maybe it is the fact that I had some more liberty when writing

this or the fact that I did an amount of work that I should have done across a week in 24 hours.

Maybe the fact that I decided to include a story about myself at the beginning. What I am going

to assume changed is my spirit while writing; I do not know why but something tells me that is

the change.
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Works Cited

Moreno, Jacobadam “Essay 1 Revision.” 29 November 2022. ENGL 1301, Texas A&M

International University, student paper.

Moreno, Jacobadam “Essay 2 Reflection.” 18 October 2022. ENGL 1301, Texas A&M

International University, student paper.

Moreno, Jacobadam “Essay 2 Revision.” 3 December 2022. ENGL 1301, Texas A&M

International University, student paper.

Moreno, Jacobadam “Essay 3 Reflection.” 6 December 2022. ENGL 1301, Texas A&M

International University, student paper.

Moreno, Jacobadam “Essay 3 Revision.” 5 December 2022. ENGL 1301, Texas A&M

International University, student paper.