Running head: A SEMESTER IN REFLECTION 1

A Semester in Reflection

Sam Swenson

Arizona State University

A SEMESTER IN REFLECTION 2

Abstract

In this essay the author reflects on his understanding of writing as it matters to him and his

personal achievements from this past semester in the f2f Writers Studio First Year Composition

class. He talks about how writing is very important to him and how that belief has been

reinforced over the course of the semester through this class. He also talks about which

classroom activities contributed the most to his overall learning and how Writing Project 1:

Visual Analysis was his favorite writing project because of the practical and real life skills it

taught him. To finish, he talks about his current relationship with writing and what he still has

left to learn.

Keywords: writing, semester, important, skill

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A Semester in Reflection

My understanding of writing is that it is a very important skill to have in life. Just about

any job you will hold will require you to share your thoughts and opinions or someone else’s

thoughts and opinions, on a written level. Outside of the work setting, writing will be a crucial

part of your daily life as you will always need to communicate your thoughts with others.

Writing offers us an easy, quick and effective way of communication. For me personally, writing

is very important. I used to believe that writing wasn’t something I needed to go to multiple

years of schooling for. I always thought that a basic understanding was enough and that since I

wasn’t planning on becoming an author, librarian or editor, I didn’t need to possess a very high

level of writing. Now I understand that it is a very important skill to have that I will use writing

in just about every facet of life. It’s a way to express your feelings, hopes and desires on a

professional and personal level.

It was at the start of the school year before my first English class at Arizona State that I

didn't believe writing was very important. But after that class and coming into this semester, I

understood that writing was crucial. It was something that I knew I needed to push myself in as it

was only gonna help me. I knew that the increased ability to communicate myself in a multitude

of ways to other people was going to be very important. Looking back at this second semester

and thinking about what I’ve learned and how I feel now, I wouldn't say my view of writing has

changed. If anything, I think that what I’ve learned this semester has only reinforced my positive

belief in writing. This class has taught me a ton of new strategies and techniques that will help

me communicate my thoughts on a high level in a lot of different ways.

Throughout this semester, this class used a ton of different activities and learning

methods to try and teach us the information. Out of all the activities we did I thought interacting
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with my classmates over the course of the semester has contributed the most to my overall

understanding of writing. It was really interesting to see how other people interpret and use the

information that was presented to us in class. It was really beneficial to be able to gather my own

thoughts and opinions on the new material we were learning and then talk to other people and

see what they thought. This way I was able to get multiple viewpoints and see the situation from

multiple angles. This allowed me to learn at a very high level and definitely contributed the most

to my learning this semester.

Out of the projects we did I really enjoyed Writing Project 1: Visual Analysis. Nowadays

we are constantly surrounded by ads and visual art, sometimes it can be overwhelming and tough

to understand what it all means. That's why I highly value the skill of analyzing visual art to see

how the individual elements come together to form one cohesive message. In this project that's

exactly what we did. I took an anti vaping ad campaign and analyzed the elements of the ad to

see what they were all working towards. I was able to understand how different elements such as

text, color schemes, and layouts affect the message of the ad. This was my favorite project in the

class because the skills we learned from it are very practical and can be used in everyday life.

I believe I have a good relationship with writing after this class. I have confidence in my

abilities and feel as if I can write at an above average level. I believe some of my strong points

are creating a solid thesis and strong talking points to back up my thesis. I’m proud and glad that

I have this ability because it makes it a lot easier to write essays. Once you have a solid thesis

and strong talking points, it creates a strong spine for your essay. One thing that I think I can

work on in the future is my ability to analyze text at a deeper level. A lot of the times I only

analyze the surface level of the text and fail to find the deeper meaning. This can lead to my

writing being boring or one dimensional so this is definitely something that I want to work on. I
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also want to continue to work on my understanding of APA formatting. I often make little

mistakes in my formatting and I believe this is something that I can easily fix. It is also important

to get a good grasp of APA formatting since this is the main format used in higher level writing.

Throughout this course I have improved my ability to write. A lot of the skills I have

learned can be applied to situations inside and outside of the classroom. Inside the classroom, I

can use skills such as thesis generation and APA formatting. Creating a strong thesis is crucial to

writing an essay because it sets you up with a solid foundation for you to write the rest of your

essay. Most of the time when you have a weak thesis, the rest of your essay will follow suit.

Since I have developed that skill very well, it will greatly help me in future classes. APA

formatting will also help me in future classroom settings since APA format allows you to

properly organize your essay and award credit to the right people. APA is also the main format

used in higher level English so it’s something that won’t be going away. Outside of the

classroom, critical thinking and text analysis will be very beneficial skills to have. Critical

thinking is something that I will use in just about every facet of life, it will help me make better

decisions and function at a higher level. Text analysis doesn't just mean books. This can be ads,

tv shows, music videos, billboards, etc. I will be able to break these down into their individual

elements and see how they all come together to form one message. Since the types of text I just

mentioned are everywhere, this is a skill that is extremely practical and will be used a lot.