Reflection 1 1/29
My reading habits are pretty traditional. I believe I am probably more of a passive reader. To be honest I do not enjoy to read. I feel that school had changed my perspective on reading. Instead of a calming .leisure activity, reading has become more of a task that needs to get done to get good grades. Feeling the need to complete the task had made me into more of a passive reading. I am usually just trying to get it done, rather than actively reading. Being more of a passive reader, I feel that I do not have strong annotation practices. I would say I tend to more just underline or highlight something, and maybe just write down a little understanding as well. I am going to challenge myself in this course to get away from my old habits. I want to become more of an active reader and annotator. Some of the reading and books I have read over the years have been very interesting, but I was closed off and did not realize. I am going to be more open now and respect the reading more. I hope I can learn how to better annotate as well. Annotating is something you can use in any class to be successful.
Reflection 2 2/9
I had comments about the focus on my essay and encorporating more examples. I defienly agree with both of these comments and felt as I was writing I was also a bit confused. I think I tried to force all baldwins quotes and ideas into my essay. There were many times I didn’t need to talk about complexity but I did. I think through revision I will try to keep it more focused on categorization. I didn’t really know how to writre in words how complexity is our safety. I undertand how but struggled to relate it to the writing and my life. As for adding more examples I think I can add better ones. I tried to make one about each writing for my essay. I think if I have 2 really strong points about my story I will be able to better get the point acrros, rather than having 3 or 4 decent points. I can also encorporate more of my real lfie examples into my essay. I might try to focus one paragraph on myself, one one Nguyen, and one on Gay. I will provide one very strong point on each rather than tryong to get an ok point on each in all three paragraphs. I feel I am able to use feedback to revise pretty well. I liked that I had feedback form my teacher as well as my classmate.
Reflection 3 2/16
Paper 1 enegaged me to think about the way I view things. I need to be more open to everything and take time to learn and feel uncomfortable. Through the differnet stages, I was able to really find what was a good topic to write on. I struggled at first but was able to come to more of a realization through the prewrites and editing of my essay. At first I treid to just throw a bunch of nonesense into my essay and fill the pages. I think I was able to find points that were actaully interesting and I could truly relate to. I struggled a bit to fully get points across when I was talking about my articles, but I think in my final draft after I took out and added certain examples, the paper became better developed. If there is a subject I found interesting, I found it easier to write about it. I was more able to develop ideas and flow when writing about these ideas.
Reflection 4 2/23
In paper 1, I realize many positives and negatives. One positive was my connections and ideas. I felt that I was able to give good examples and ideas while writing. I had a couple of strong comments on those types of ideas. One area I definetly need to improve on is my proofreading and spelling/grammar. I think a problem is that I am not proofreading carefully enough. When I get a good idea in my head I like to flow and type relatively quickly. I think with computers I just expect everythinmg to be automaticlaly corrected, but that isn’t always the case. For the next paper, I want to take my time writing and make sure I am doing a good proofread.
Reflection 5 3/28
I chose to read the article by Price. Price talks about how having empathy doesn’t make us superheros. I can agree with Price a bit and his ideas on how empathy is just something we feel and it doesn’t make us great. I also don’t want to completely discredit empathy because it is a sign of wanting to help someone. I know that I have empathy for others, but I also know that there are people out there that don’t have any empathy for others and in society we proably see these people as cold blooded. I think showing empathy isn’t really all that special, but going out of your way to help someone is a real way to put this empathy and feeling into action.
Reflection 6 3/30
I thought that paper 2 and the interview went pretty well. This was my frist time really doing a more offical interview so it was good to dip my toes in it. I also enjoyed the topic of my paper and felt that it was eye opening and allowing for me to learn more and make key realizations. I think one strength that I had in project 2 was my interview. I feel that I am decent at communicating with people and it is a lot easier for me to do so than writing it. One weakness I had was connecting paragraphs. I need to use repetition for better transitions to make my ideas and those of the article better interconnected. I got pretty good feedback on my interview. I tend to, as I said earlier, do a lot better job in something like and interview vs writing a paper. I had one error that I forget to mention who the person I was interviewing was. I added it in at the end but it just blanked my mind in the beginning. As for the caveat goes, I woudl say it was useful, but not an extreme effect on the paper. I think we should continue to do caveats as they really open up our own opinions to what the article are saying. This project was a good experience and I am happy I got to try the podcast/interview piece.
Reflection 7 4/11
I believ that my ability to peer review has greatly improved throughout the semester. When I first started I would say my peer reviewing came of as slightly lazy. It wasn’t actually lazy, I just wasn’t really sure what to say or what to point out. I was not confident in my ability to peer review someone elses paper if my paper had many errors of its own. After my first peer rewiev, and getting my own paper peer reviewed by both a student and teacher, I was able to realize a lot more of the things to review and comment on. In the most recent paper and paper 2 I put a lot more local and global revision comments to better help my person out. Even though I had grown a lot there is still many points and erros I miss out on. There is also places in the paper that don’t need and edit, but I say there is one needed. On paper 3 this happened when I wrote a comment about reword or seperating into 2 sentences. My point wasnt great and it was pointed out to me. Things like this allow me to learn for next time and let me get better.
Reflection 8 4/20
Recently I was able to develop and find a new composition. Through taking art class first first semester I was able to deveop a sense of composition in the form of abstract art. I have never been into drawing or any form of art. In this art class I developed a liking for abstarct art and sometimes for relaxation or pleasure I draw out absrarct drawings or paintings. I not do this very often but every now and then I am able to sit donw and complete one of these abstarct drawings. Sometimes they take very short and sometimes they take some time but I don’t really realize the time as I am doing it as I feel calmed by the process. To bring this creativeness into english class for the podcast I think when I am setting up the podcast I will make sure I am in a calm mood. I like to listen to music when I am doing these drawing so I when I am in the process of setting up my interview I will try to put on the same playlist. I am also very free when I draw so being free while constructing my podcast is something I can focus on
Reflection 9 4/25
I enjoyed going back and reading all my reflections throughout the semester. I was able to see many categories I grew in, and some i need some practice still in. I truly do think my writing has imprroved. While I went back reading all of them, I found many errors, especially spelling, in my reflections. I think through doing essays and peer review I have limited my errors. This is a very importnat aspect of writing and I can use this skill in any class, and for anything in the rest of my life. Going bakc to reflection one I talked about how I was a more of a passive reader and didn’t really get too involved with annotations. I have grown very much since then and now take a lot more time to be an active reader and annotate readings. I actual really would like to do some leaisure reading this summer on a topic I find interesting. Reading is a great activity for keeping the brain sharp, and school is only going to get more challenging from here on out. I have learned many new habits, and also reinforced some old habits. I havent taken an english class for a little while so taking one again for sure brought out some old habits. Some of these habits were good, and some not so good. One example of this is I am using a source I may find something I really like and would like to use as evidence in my essay. I will really dial in on this part of the source, but will have some slight disregard for the rest of the source. I remember I used to do this in highscool and noticed it a little in this course as well. I would say overall I learned many things. I really do belive I improved to become a more active reader, which I challenged myself to do in the first reflection.
Reflectio 10 5/4
I very much enjoyed doing the podcast. I also liked linking the paper and the podcast together. I think it made me a lot more organized using the paper to construct the podcast. All of my sources were already explained, all of my quotes already picked out, and all of my own ideas were already written out. In speaking and interviewing, I was able to talk with someone and share more of my ideas. I was also able to use more of a casual choice of words. I love talking with people, I am a social being so being able to converse with someone about these subjects was beneficial to do. I also feel like I learn more about topics when I have to talk about them. In writing, I feel that I am not able to get my points across as well as I can when using my voice. While revising my paper down I was able to pull out the most important things. When I was writing my paper, I though all 5 papges were very important but when conducting the interview I was able to take the most important point and build on them as well as have a discussion of them. This is why the composition of the podcast feels a whole lot better to me. I just feel that I can make the podcast flow easily while I usually find it challenging to make a paper have great flow. However, one downside possibly to the podcast is that it is easy to get a little out of control when you start discussing. One question leads to another now you are talking for too long and don’t have enough time to make sure you stay in the time limit. Overall, I very much enjoy doing podcasts, especially in this case where I revised my paper to use as my script.
