As a first generation college student I expected to spend endless hours of studying, reading chapters without end, discussing the pieces in class and then writing about them. At first I was skeptical of enrolling in a class that had Environmental Science and English 130 merged together as it sounded daunting. However, as the weeks progressed I realized the u-course isn’t like your traditional classroom setting. Not that the classroom layout wasn’t already obvious but I had absolutely no clue as to how the class would be held. It was interesting to find myself engaging in collaborative conversations with my pod, discussing assignments, and getting them done in a matter of minutes. I’ve always enjoyed working on my own, but the course really taught me the value …show more content…
These changes came from the lifestyle project which was meant as focus for me to reduce my impact on the environment by gradually changing the way I live on a daily basis (Farrell & Willard, 2015). Through this project I was asked to document my solid waste and water consumption through a three day span for two weeks. Initially I established a personal baseline of my waste and water consumption by recording the data over three days. These projects were done on separate occasions but the process was done similarly. Once I had recorded my data for three days out of the week I would move on to the second week and actively sought to reduce my waste and water consumption for another three days out of the week. Things I did to reduce my solid waste was eat more compostable foods, using less packaging by buying products in bulk, and recycling. Measures I took in reducing my water consumption were maximizing my laundry loads, minimizing my shower time, and turning off the faucet when running. These simple changes made a definitive change in my everyday habits and effectively reduced my ecological footprint (Farrell & Willard,
Throughout the semester i only learned few new things but i did improve and solidify my skill of writing. Before my first year of college my skills have always undermined by other high school english teachers and with that came disappointing grades. I am writing this paper as a reflection of the semester and the progress i have made as a writer. I now understand many things that my high school teachers have done a poor job demonstrating and i am grateful that i decided to take my own route in my education instead of their syllabus. I entered the semester with anxiety that i would perform as i did before but i clearly outdid my own expectations by receiving top grades on my essays.
Going into this course, I felt that the reading and writing skills I learned in high school were very beneficial in preparing me for an English college course. In high school, I was enrolled in GATE and AP English courses. In these classes, I was assigned several readings and was taught to actively read by doing annotations. I was to summarize the writer 's main points, to write down my own opinions, or to connect it to any personal experiences. These annotations helped me understand the writer 's message better because I was able to break down the things the writer said and only focused on the important points. Then, I was also able to form my own opinion on that topic by deciding whether I agreed or disagreed with the author’s opinion. Moreover, I used evidence from the text to support my argument.
English has never been my best subject. Reading books can be exciting, but the writing aspect of English can be dreadful. Somehow, however, I passed all my advanced English classes with at least a B, and my teachers always considered me to be “above average.” My impartiality toward English shifted to an indifference near the end of my high school career; my indifference then shifted to appreciation. This appreciation is attributed to American Studies and Honors Writing, the most difficult English classes at Belleville East Township High School. American Studies and Honors Writing have strengthened my writing skills beyond what I believed possible. I still do not believe that I am the best writer, and English may never be my best or favorite
In conclusion, the impact I personally have on the planet has surprised me. My personal ecological footprint is much larger than I expected. However, there are measures I can take to drop my current consumption rate, such as altering my recycling choices, making better purchasing decisions, and adopting the reduce, reuse, and recycle concept throughout my household. By altering my habits and consumption rate, I can affect my local community tremendously in a positive way for the planet Earth.
Coming into this experience, I questioned where I would find my place in the Senate. In 2014 I came here as a page and was able to witness daily floor action, but I never had the opportunity to be a part of day to day office business. I knew I would be at the bottom of the totem pole as an intern, but I wanted to feel as if I was making an impact on Senator Reid’s last year in office. In an office as large as Harry Reid’s it is hard to feel as if you are making an impact. I had the misconception that I would be working closely with him; however, thus far I have only spoken with the Senator one time. Within the first week I readjusted my expectations to try and find my role within the office. I was still doubting the impact I would make here this summer. With the Senator retiring, the office is tending to run particularly slow. When available, work was handed down to us by the Legislative Correspondents. Work primarily consisted of covering hearings, attending briefings, and doing research. When given the opportunity, I have worked as hard as possible to complete tasks to my best ability in hopes of getting more work in the future. As I may
I signed up for English 131 because I enjoy writing and figured it would be a fun and informative course in which I could learn writing strategies to help me in my college career and beyond. I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty good writer, as I took AP English classes in high school and it has always been a subject I’ve naturally gravitated towards. This course exceeded my expectations as to what I could learn in ten weeks. I feel that my writings skills have developed in all aspects, and I can take the skills I have learned and applied them to other courses and my future career. It’s an extremely good feeling after finishing an assignment, reading it over, and feeling very proud of how I was able to develop my thoughts and resources into something that has the potential to make a lasting impact on its readers.
Winston Churchill once stated “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” During my time here at English 180 I saw some improvement in my writing in terms of content. I feel as if I am more capable of writing an essay with better content than I was able to do back in High School. My essays have shown improvement because I did change my style of writing a bit and I added something different every time I wrote a paper. In English 180 we wrote several papers, but each one had a change to fit the certain criteria. Winston Churchill’s quote perfectly describes the purpose of the class English 180. Writing different pieces with a different format and branching out was key in the subjects of our writing assignments.
We should strive for perfection in all walks of life, but if we are to be successful on life`s journey we must hold these truths to be self-evident: that error(s) are a must in growth and perfection is impossible. Throughout this fall semester in Writing 101, I have grown as a more confident writer. I have learned to overcome the fear and hindrance of inadequately transcribing my true thoughts to paper- selfishly working to please the reader and not my idea(s). Sharing my perspective, without fixed add-ins, is what makes me unique as a writer. I feel this can lead to constructive debates and can act as a learning tool for uninformed readers, but if the writing tampers the room for debate and learning is lessened. As a writer, I pride myself on the ability to pay close attention to detail; however, it was not easy for me to become a more confident writer. Although I praise the work of my first essay, Common Readings, because it
We have reached the midpoint of the semester. Two long months of continuous reading, writing, and annotating; article after article, paper after paper. As much as I dread reading and writing, I am glad to say that I have improved substantially since my first days in your English 5A class. Although there are still some aspects of my writing I have yet to improve on, I have made significant strides on improving my grammar, sentence structure, and the transitions from paragraph to paragraph. Evidence of my improvements are visible on my first two major writing projects this semester; “College Writing For The Incoming Freshman” and “Segregation Is Over, Right?”. Aside from writing, I have also improved on my analytical skills and rhetorical skills.
In the early years of my life, I had never once thought that an individual would have an impending circumstance that would lead them to be unable normally process life’s simple problems. This idea changed from early on in my third-grade year to where I would bring home a constant string of Ds and Fs in my occasional assessments which would eventually turn into my grades. Little did I know, this complication would land myself into multiple summers where I spent most of my time in classrooms rather than the pool. It was not long after that where I finally discovered I have a math learning disability. From what I have learned through my own impacting endeavors, I fully understood that amid any and all disabilities a person may carry, they have
Writing is an important and useful way to communicate with people. Without an essential writing skill, people may have difficulty communicating with others. In Pace University, English Department focuses on improving students writing by adding a workshop class to improve students ' writing. Over the course of the semester, I have learned a better technique and tips from Professor Boylan, reading an essay from authors and class discussion. Writing had always been one of my weaknesses, but it was challenging to take that initial step past high school. When I am first taking English 120, I have decided to take all the help that are available to minimize grammar mistakes, better sentence structures, and better vocabularies usage. Reading an article or essay before every class improves my vocabulary usage, Doing discourse community essay shows me a way to express my feeling about being
At age five I entered my first day of school at James Foster elementary school with all of my fears packed up in my backpack, my favorite white and pink dress on and pig tails in my hair I was ready to conquer my first day of kindergarten. This day was going to start the rest of my educational history. As I waited with my mom to get in our lines to go to class I got overwhelmed with emotions of fear and doubt and began to cry which is normal for a kindergartener to do on the first day, in the midst of that I made a friend named Kara, my best friend to this day all because we cried having the same fears and doubts walking in to our first day together. We then met our teacher Mrs. Spencer she was kind, friendly and spunky and one of the most
Through this program, I feel I had acquired an important amount of knowledge in different areas, which will help me to improve my teaching, giving me the necessary tools to better serve all my students, especially the English language learners (ELLs). I understand the importance of been a culturally-responsive teacher. I understand the importance of having a clear portrait of the school, and being able to understand diversity in school. Through research, I can learn about student’s background, culture, ethnicity, and language they speak. I acquired the knowledge about linguistics and language acquisition, which will allow me to support my ELLs in my content area. I will be able to recognize the areas were students struggle acquiring a
On September 20th, I walked in to the classroom for my first college level English class at 7:30 AM. As I sat down at my seat, I didn’t know what to expect. The biggest question in my mind, though, was this: Will I learn anything from this class? Or will this just be another class where I complete assignments, but don’t enhance my skills? My question was soon answered, since throughout this class I have learned innumerable skills which have forever improved my composition. Specifically, there are three main goals which I have achieved in this class: I have learned to think and read critically, compose and revise in context, and reflect and evaluate.
From the incident, I learned a lot about myself; how I want my actions to reflect what I want in life. I also learned how my actions could have had much more severe consequences than I received. I have always been a good kid – I make straight A’s (and some B’s), I have always been in involved in extracurricular activities in both high school and college. However, though I try to make my case for being a good kid and a good student, I did not justify the type of person I am with the decision I decided to make the night of January 16, 2016.