Jonathan Simpson Engl 1101 Mr.

B December 2nd 2011 End of the Semester: A Time to Look Back and Reflect Now that my first semester here at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte is just about over it is time for me to look back and review my first semester English class. While it has been quite an interesting semester, the class was not as simple as I had expected it to be and the class has really opened my eyes to what an English class should truly be. At the beginning of the semester I had gone in expecting the class to be quite simple like English classes I had taken back in high school. As time progressed I learned that this class was going to be nothing like any previous class I had taken, and really was going to develop who I am as a writer. One of the things that really had made this point quite apparent was the very first day of class. On the first day of class one thing that really stood out to me was when an apple was presented to the class, and we were asked if the apple was a text. At the beginning of this course I would have said no; much like I did on the first day of class. However as we dove deeper into the subject an apparent point was made that anything could be a text. As I personally looked at the apple I did not really read into the apple and maybe what it meant to others. That was until my fellow classmates shared what they saw in the apple and how anything no matter how significantly small and irrelevant it may be. The point that was made was that everything is a text, as it helps explain the lives and stories of certain people and shapes them into the person that they are going to become. After this day I realized that was not going to be like any English

class I had previously taken as we were going to delve into our own personal lives and realize who we are; both as a person, and as a writer. Upon reflection of this one day where we observed the apple, I felt as if it had greatly molded into a better writer as I started to look into what seemed like everyday items and realize that those items are essentially who you are. I started to examine my personal belongings as well as myself, to help me find who I truly was; and how even though I thought they had no significance earlier, had shaped both my literacy and my writing abilities. This idea came into full swing with the deductive reasoning assignment that we did in class as well as the multimodal literacy project. With these assignments the class was told to choose items that represented their home, community, work, and schooling, after choosing these items we were told to engage with these items and to evaluate how it had molded us into who we are as a writer, as well as give a history on these different aspects of life and how literacy is relatable to those aspects. This really opened my eyes from how my job all the way to my friends and family had affected my literacy. These assignments showed me that pretty much every decision that you make chooses who you are, and plays a huge impact on the way that you view literacy. Upon reflection of my actual work throughout this course at the times of me writing them I felt as if they were good at the time; however upon review of my works as well as the comments that my professor made on my works it was apparent that my writing and my efforts could have been a lot better. My projects for this class are great examples, such as my multimodal literacy project. With this project I spent a lot of time on the visual representation part of my project, while the essay for the defense was rather weak in my opinion. Reflecting on this work as well as other projects I had in the class it was apparent that if I wanted to be the best writer that I could be, then I would have to more thoroughly express and articulate my thoughts

rather than be vague and not go into any details about my beliefs. Within these projects I would just write sentences, but I would not delve into and develop my ideas to help make my works more legible and flow quite better. This is quite obvious in my multimodal literacy narrative project as I stated the works that I love to read as well and the ones that I do not particularly enjoy, as I did not give my reasoning for these feeling and beliefs and just left my writing very vague and broad. Another thing throughout this course that I believe hindered my writing was my lack of pre-writing. When papers and projects were assigned throughout this class, rather than spending time planning my papers and writing, I just jumped into the project and began. I believe that this was a crucial mistake on my part. Prewriting would have let me clearly express my ideas and help plan for my writing in a better sense than just trying to wing it and create my ideas on the fly. I truly believe that this was my biggest mistake that I had made in this course along with procrastination. For the majority of my projects throughout this course I waited until nearly the last minute to begin my projects, and with a lack of pre-writing it was hard for me to find direction for how I wanted my projects to go. This led to the end result I feel being a lackluster performance on my behalf. Another practice that I greatly feel affected me as a writer was my poor decision making on where for me to conduct my writing. For the majority of the work that was due in this class I decided to conduct my work in my dorm. Reflection on this past semester makes me feel like this was a terrible decision as a place for me to work as I became easily distracted and it was another hassle for me to overcome as I was working. This is quite apparent in my video for my portrait of a writer assignment where I had to video record myself while writing a first draft for my paper. As you can see from the video that I have posted on my E-Portfolio website I became quite

easily distracted and it happened quite often. Looking back it is quite probable that I let the distractions take my full focus away from my work, making it to where my work was affected and didnt have the potential grades that I would have liked to receive for them. I believe that if I had 100% secluded myself from the distractions that were presented towards me, my work would have been of a much higher caliber as I would have had a clear mind and devoted my full undivided attention towards my work. With the portrait of a writer essay I came to the troubling conclusion that my writing practices were awful. As I have previously stated in this essay I did not engage in pre-writing or really even reread my work to try and make my writing live up to the potential that I had. That being said though, I believe that the videos were a great learning tool as now I can view the mistakes that I had made. Being that I did not engage with many writing practices and it being quite evident in my projects I believe that I can learn from those downfalls, now that I know who I am as a writer. I believe after viewing myself that I can turn those mistakes like not pre-writing, into priorities and maybe even strong points of my work. I did learn that my writing abilities were quite good, but due to my poor decisions to not engage in those planning practices and my poor writing practices my work was subpar to how it could have been. This is a weakness as of now, but I plan to focus upon my weaknesses and make them strong points. When it comes to this class I feel as if for the most part I played it safe with my work and was not really willing to take chances. The vast majority of my projects were essays when they had the potential to be many different types of genres to display my work. In the end I honestly dont know if this helped or hurt me, as I played it safe sticking to writing styles I was quite familiar with; rather than going outside the box and trying to do something a bit more unorthodox. This is in a way regret for me as I feel that if I had been more willing to take risks

that I would have been able to show off my creative abilities (or lack there of) and to also be better articulate my work in different ways than just a formal essay. However playing it safe was not a regret as I also feel that by sticking to essays, I was using a genre that was more familiar to me as well as not becoming intimidated by trying to come up with a whole different direction for my work as I feel that could have turned out quite disastrous. All in all I am glad I chose to play it safe in this class. I feel as if the one aspect of this class that really stuck with me was how we examined everything. From the previously stated part on the apple and how it relates to literacy, to even when the class watched the video where Bob Saget was hunting for Sasquatch, it made me realize that everyone has different views, and takes on literacy; and that literacy is a lot more complex than just the ability to where you know how to read and write. Literacy is how you view everything and how it helps to truly make the person that you are. For example one of my favorite possessions is my guitar. Where others view the guitar as an instrument, I view it as a lifestyle. With my guitar it makes me able to read certain items that others may not be able to, such as tabs like I stated in my subculture analysis project; or the ability to truly listen to music for the lyrics and understand the meaning behind the music. The projects such as the multimodal literacy project helped me truly realize why I have the writing styles and interests in literature that I do. I feel as if this English course taught me not only about reading and writing; but that the class also taught me about myself as I learned who I truly was, not only as a writer and a student, but also as a person in general. I feel like the lessons I learned throughout this course will not leave me as soon as I walk out of the classroom, but will be lessons I value for the rest of my life.

Overall I feel as if this class helped me greatly grow as a writer. Now that I know both the practices that are successful for me as well as the practices that hinder both my learning, and overall the quality of my work, such as the lack on my part to engage in pre-writing; as well as the areas that best help me contribute to my work being of a higher caliber; I will now focus on what will make me more of a successful writer. After engaging in this course I also have realized that procrastination is a problem that I greatly need to avoid, as it leads to me rushing to get work done; and not being able to clearly express my ideas, due to the high level of stress that procrastination poses towards me. For the rest of my college career, and even upon graduation my goals are to better engage with my writing so that it can be of the highest caliber possible. This class has really opened my eyes as to how even though my writing abilities are quite good, my writing practices set me up for failure.