Reflection About English

When I started out my first semester in college I honestly thought college would be easy, kind of like you see in the movies. Unfortunately, I was very wrong. English has never been my strongest subject, or even a decent subject for me. During high school I took the easiest English classes offered because I never realized how important writing actually is. I now know I was only hurting myself by doing so. EN100 was really the first English class I had taken, and taken seriously in a long time. I had never written a research paper and never learned how to correctly cite sources. I was still stuck in the mindset that a good essay had five paragraphs as I was taught in grade school only to have my professor refer to it as the “five-paragraph monster”

These were usually found and cleared up before the final draft was turned in but only thanks to the peer editing and rough drafts that I had turned in during class. Even on my last draft of “Teachers of Tomorrow” I had points taken off on my final draft because of punctuation and integrating quote errors. I had written “When asked about forms of hierarchy she responded with, “I would consider our hierarchy to be President, Treasurer, Secretary, Service, Publicity, and then Social.” (“Teachers of Tomorrow” 1) With her quote being an entire new paragraph. I now know that was not necessary, yet I did this throughout my entire paper which resulted in a lower grade. Errors like these have shown me that although I have improved on many things, I still need to spend more time editing and reviewing my own papers. When I first learned we would be peer editing in this class I was honestly a bit nervous because I have always been so self-conscious about my work. In my literacy narrative “New Beginnings” I shared personal information and did not want others to think differently of me, which made me hesitate weather or not peer editing was a good idea. I now realize there was nothing to worry about and peer editing did nothing but strengthen my paper. The writing lab on campus is another great resource that I learned to take advantage of. Again, I was embarrassed to have others read and critique my work but the workers at the writing lab did nothing but help improve both my work and my confidence. I think if I would spend more time peer reviewing and reading over my paper before just turning it in, I would likely get a better grade on my early and final