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Sofia Irfan

Jon Beadle

May 8, 2019

ENG115

Reflective Essay

When I first started this class, I had quite a lot of experience writing essays already

and I was confident that the class would be a breeze. It was only as I started writing the first

assigned essay that I realized how inadequate I was, how much I still had to learn when it

came to essay writing, especially when it came to writing argumentative essays.

The first assignment I received was a short one that required me to analyze the

different spaces that I operated in as a rhetorician. This assignment was easy enough, I just

had to think about the various spaces, like websites and forums, where I communicated, and

it helped me see what type of arguments I used in the way that I wrote. I did not, however,

know how to format the paragraph that I submitted for this assignment, since I used APA

style back in my old college, and here I was to use MLA. This was just the beginning of my

troubles with formatting.

The first big assignment I received was the Project Space essay, in which I had to read

three articles about internal and external space and how that affected one’s happiness. After

having read the articles, I was more confused than ever about how I was to go about linking

the three articles together to create an essay, since all three articles seemed to be discussing

separate spaces and I was finding it difficult to come up with a thesis that was adequate.

Re-reading the articles helped a little, but I was still confused when I started writing, and I

remained confused until the day that we had our peer review, where I was given feedback on

how to improve my essay. I was told that my body paragraphs did not flow and connect well
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with the thesis. I had realized this while writing, but I did not know how to fix it, and upon

suggestion, I rewrote portions. I shortened my sentences a little and re-arranged them to let

them flow better.

Despite making changes to the Project Space essay that I thought would have made

into a much better piece of writing, I was disappointed to find that when I got my grade

back, I only had a 77%. Disappointed, but determined to do better on the next essay, I was

happy to learn that the next essay was about a topic that I found much more interesting.

I had been meaning to read Kafka for a long time, and the opportunity to do so for

class thrilled me. When I started reading The Metamorphosis, however, I found it more

allegorical than I would have liked. Now up until this point, I had read allegorical texts and

analyzed them, but never something the length of The Metamorphosis. There were some

themes that were obvious, while others eluded me, and I struggled to find enough meaning in

the text to get me invested in writing an entire essay about it.

At this time, I was also learning more about finding credible sources. Previously, I

had experience finding sources for various school assignments, but usually I was allowed to

cite blogs and articles from sources that I learned were not as credible as I had thought.

Armed with this new knowledge on how to find sources, and with the CSUN’s database at

my disposal, I started researching about the Metamorphosis and the ways that it could be read

as an allegory. Eventually I found a theme that struck a chord with me, and it was about the

effect that the modern day working environment had on an individual. This topic is near and

dear to my heart, as I am passionate about sociological perspectives, and this allowed me to

write the essay with an ease that I had not experienced with the first assignment. This time, I

was also more prepared to format and cite my paper correctly. I went to the Learning
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Resource Centre for advice, and they instructed me on how to cite my paper depending on the

source that I was using and how I had accessed that source.

The time around I needed a counterargument for what I had been writing since it was

an argumentative essay, but I have always struggled with counterarguments and this time was

no different. My counterargument was short and hastily written, and sure enough when I got

my grade back, one of the notes made by my professor was regarding my inadequate

counterargument. However, it turned out that I had done better than my previous essay, and I

was happy to have received 86% for this one.

For the final assigned essay, we had to watch the 1954 Godzilla movie and analyze

how the monster represented people’s fears and desires. I was sure that by this point in the

semester I had learnt enough to write an essay that would floor my professor, but again, I had

plenty more to learn. The draft that I brought in to be reviewed by my peers was given back

to me with more notes than I was expecting to see, but they were helpful nonetheless. I was

told to make my sentences more concise, as I have a habit of letting my sentences run on, and

my lack of counterargument was again pointed out. This time, I had an easier time fixing the

issues, as I had managed to find credible sources for a counterargument. Since a lot of my

argument was based on real world events that had transpired, I was able to look at history to

provide a counter argument, analyzing the movie again through a sociological perspective.

I have yet to receive a grade, but I am confident that this was my most organized

essay. I have improved my body paragraphs and how they link to my thesis a lot since I first

started this class, and I hope that it was made clear in the essay. An organized essay is a good

essay, I have learned.

There are many skills that I think I acquired over the course of this class, including

but not limited to organizational skills, analytical skills and the conventions of formatting,
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citation and structure. Mostly though, I’ve come out of this class knowing that I know how to

argue my way through any essay, and I am looking forward to using that skill in not only my

other classes, but also the online forums I frequent. It feels good knowing that I have the

skills necessary to convince people through my writing.