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Yesenia Orozco
Professor Batty
English 113A
11 December 2015
Perks of English 113
I believe that Ive gained a lot more knowledge in writing by having English 113A. This
class has helped me improve in my grammar issues, and helped me clarify on certain things such
as quoting, punctuation, subject / verb agreements, comma splices and many more. The class did
not only help my improvement in grammar, but on developing an argument. The SI class that is
after helped me so much as well; having another person to go to if I have any questions is a lot
help. Also all the peer review work helped a lot to because its great getting feedback from other
students who are writing about the same thing.
Before I entered this class, I would not been able to write an argumentative essay. And
when I did write one my essay was very weak. I did not have a proper argument, nor did I show
both claims of the argument. Now that Ive learned the correct way to write an argumentative
essay, I believe I can successfully write one. What helped me gain this confidence in writing
were the little assignments that were assigned before the final essay. Which were submitting a
proposals meaning the topic for the essay, an outline, and a rough draft. On the following day
of class, we will get into a group and we will rotate our rough draft essays within our group. By

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doing that we get feedback on our essays from our fellow class mates and we give each other
advice about our papers on what to fix or what s great about their essay.
Other things that helped me were the two books New Voices, and they say, I say. The
book New Voices gave me great examples from past students who were in English 113 as well.
The book is filled with essays that student have written in their class of 113 as an assignment and
were able to send it in to get published. The other book which was a huge help is they say, I say
because that book actually gave us templates if we get stuck at repeating certain things. The
templates were much help when it came to quoting and introducing a counterargument. I tend to
repeat the way I introduce quoting or counterarguments so that book can in handy. It was also
very useful for other things such as giving examples on bad arguments and showing essay that
had a great argument. And it helped a lot when we had class discussion about it during class on
certain chapters that we had to read for an assignment. Class discussions are always helpful
because you get to hear what other people have to say and perhaps they something you did not
catch.
Overall, I enjoyed the class very much. All the assignment helped me to make sure I got a
good score on my essay. The books that were needed for the class were actually helped and we
did actually use the books. Having the SI class right after also helped very much because I get
more help from the SI leader and have more time to discuss my essays with my classmates in
my group. Not only did this class help me improve in my writing, but as a college student.