Learning Experiences
Self-Evaluation of My Performance in 303
Throughout the course of the year, I have had innumerable pleasant experiences in room 303, though my performance has wavered day to day. For starters, we need to find a baseline for my high school English classes to establish how I am evaluating myself. My freshman and sophomore years I was in the honors program for English, but I wasn 't especially proud of my performance in any given area. Although I will say that freshman year I was proud to have wrote my memoirs, though the grammar lessons I learned sophomore year could have helped them out incredibly. While my performance was above average both of these years, I do not believe there was anything remarkable about what I was doing. During my junior year of high school, I dropped out of the honors program and opted for a lighter workload the year that I needed to focus on studying for the ACT. I was able to score a 28 on my ACT and was supremely pleased with this performance. Instead of choosing to return to the AP English class, I signed up for the Northwest College English Class. This year I know for a fact that I have been able to achieve some things that would have been impossible for me any other year of high school. Chiefly among these are my reading skills, participation skills, and even writing skills.
The first area that I 've performed well has been with my reading skills when we work with the literature in or outside of class. While I have always had a high reading level, I have always read at a literal level previous to this year. Any hidden themes or motifs incorporated in the text by the author was generally missed by me leading up to this year. Thankfully, Doct...
... middle of paper ...
...l.
While my lack of focus has held me back at various points in the year, overall I was happy with my improvements in my writing skills, my participation skills, and my reading skills. In earlier years I only knew how to use my own opinion in my writings, now I have the knowledge that allows me to include internal or external validations in my paper. My participation skills have been off the charts this year I believe, because I have been able to overcome mental barriers and participate in a way that allowed me to learn more than I have in previous years. Lastly, my reading skills have picked up and I am now proficient at spotting themes and details I would have missed in the past. It also does not hurt that I have enjoyed a great majority of what we have read in class this year, the British really knew what they were doing when it came to poetry.
Regardless of all of these improvements, I know my writing is still far from perfect. My arguments still lack the emotional appeal that, if present, would make my audience consider my arguments a lot faster. My analysis still lack development because often times I just state what happens instead of explaining why. In general, I need to work on controlling my voice and tone throughout an entire essay, which can be fixed if I choose my words more carefully to make sure my diction is uniform. Despite all of this, I am satisfied with myself, I am satisfied with the ways my writing has changed, with the way my writing skills have grown. Why? Because I am learning, and I know that I will continue improving as long as I take chances.
My development as a writer has flourished throughout this semester. The first week of this fall semester started out with writing responses from our readings in the textbook. Looking back through and analyzing my reading responses at the semester to now; I noticed a substantial improvement in not only my grammar skills, but also my summarizing, and in-depth studying of writing adeptness. Another way I have progressed this semester is the vocabulary of my writing has significantly improved and become more scholarly. Another advancement I noticed was that the content of my work has matured, along with my organizational adeptness.
Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature like a Professor: a Lively and Entertaining Guide to
What goes through your mind when you read? Do you read deliberately, looking for certain aspects, or do you read as a blank slate? When reading, professors expect a deliberateness that will help you to uncover meanings that are not readily apparent. Thomas C. Foster in his book “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” expands on this concept. He endeavors to instruct his readers in the way he believes they should read, in order to get the most out of each book. He concedes that, “When lay readers encounter a fictive text, they focus, as they should, on the story and the characters” but to truly read like a professor you must also divert a portion of your attention on “other elements of the novel” such as “memory… symbol… [And] pattern” (Foster, 15). Foster clarifies
Throughout this semester I have learned many ways of writing through two main essays literacy narrative and comparison and contrast. These two essays have taught me how to correctly fix my comma splices, thesis statements, and capitalization. I have engaged in numerous learning material during this summer class. Many times when I thought it would be hard to work on those three developments I never gave up. I gain more positive feedback from my teacher because he pointed out most of my mistakes I made on both literacy narrative and comparison and contrast essays to help me understand what is it that I need to work on. My development as a writer became stronger.
Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading between the Lines. New York: Quill, 2003. Print.
The pain and agony of knowing that I might not be prepared for college classes is a weight I have bore on my shoulders. One of my goals has always been to lift the stress of college classes off my back and have the assurance that I am ready for the challenges that are ahead of me. Since day one of high school, being engaged while learning has been my biggest desire so that I am well prepared for the next step in life: college. Dual Enrollment English was exactly what I needed to be well prepared for college. All of my high school career, I had never known what it actually meant to do well and be ¨successful.¨ An abstract idea occurred to me, in room 201, as I was sitting in the front row of my Dual Enrollment English 111 class; this idea
...dless of what I am trying to accomplish. I feel that I am much better now, in persuading someone through my writings; which would definitely come in handy in the future. The responsibility I have gained during this experience is incredible and has taught me to be a much more organized person. During this semester I was taught a process of how to write a paper and organize it. I found that all of these responsibilities have made me realize that I could definitely take the next step forward in my academic career. Each new experience I involve myself in has made me continue to grow and constantly learn something new. I am someone who has never really enjoyed English classes in the past and I when I registered for English 101 I only saw it as a requirement to graduate but I really did enjoy this English course and I know that it was something that was worthwhile for me.
Throughout this semester we have had to write many types of essays. Although this is a college English class there is still room for improvement. I made much improvement during the semester of the class. I was able to identify my weaknesses. I learned how to make improvements to the areas I was having problems in. Although each essay we did was different I was able to begin with one essay and throughout the semester turn it into two other essays. I was able to change my style of writing to fit the type of audience I was working with. I will continue to work on my writing and keep improving it.
As the year has progressed, I have grown as a reader in leaps and bounds and hope to grow even more. I need to grow accustomed to using my dictionary everytime I read, and I need to reread every chance I get. I also need to obtain an optomistic attitude about each work I read instead of criticizing it before I even read it. Compared to the beginning of the year, I am a totally different reader.
During my initial self-evaluation and assessment of me as a perspective counselor, self- awareness was an essential aspect of becoming an effective counselor. I am aware of certain things that can prevent me from becoming a competent counselor such as being unaware of my strengths and weaknesses. As a current community support worker, I have already had the opportunity to work with individuals who require different levels of support. Providing assistance to the specific population has given me the chance to utilize my communication skills. My work experience has also allowed me to be more self-aware, and open minded. After taking the techniques of counseling class I am more than confident that I have grown professionally since the beginning
In summary, I had an enjoyable time in my first college English class. I pushed myself as diligently as I could and learned much more than I thought I would. In addition to, my strengths grew stronger and my weaknesses improved as well. I acknowledge I still have some techniques and skills to work on; however, I am willing to put the time in and cannot wait to take English in the future. Writing is an everlasting skill that will be an enormous asset to me; in addition to my future classes, and my career as
I believe it is important for any student who wants to do their best in a class to take a moment to evaluate their own work to determine the rate their writing is progressing and how they can continue to advance their writing. When I looked through my own work I asked myself “what have I learned this semester?” and “what do I still need to learn in order to improve my writing?”. Answering both these questions will help me with my last step of my self-evaluation, developing a plan to learn new skills.
Over the course of the semester, I feel that I have grown as a writer in many ways. When I came into the class, there were skills I had that I already excelled at. During my time in class, I have come to improve on those skills even more. Before I took this class I didn’t even realise what I was good at. This is the first class where I felt I received feedback on my writing that helped me to actually review my work in see what areas I lacked in and where I succeeded. Some of the skills I had shocked me as I didn’t think I had those capabilities in me.
On the first day of class, I was not confident in my writing. I was in honors english last year, however, I did not do too well on essays. Being that I never received an A, I assumed my writing was not as good as it should be. Now, I earned a 6, almost 7, on the 9 point scale and am beginning to feel more confident. I do feel that I have been appropriately challenge this semester. I did not find any of the assignments to be too easy. I have definitely felt challenged this year, I have learned multiple techniques that I never knew prior to taking this class. As a whole, I am happy with the experiences I was provided in this class. The last essay I wrote, I was given the opportunity to meet with Mr. Perry after school one on one for help which was extremely beneficial. Also, I appreciate the fact that Mr. Perry reads our entire essay commenting on what went wrong or suggests ways to improve it. Revising essay really helps not only my grade, but also my overall understanding of what I did incorrectly. Overall, I am extremely happy I took this class and I continue to benefit in multiple ways.