Running head: REFLECTION 1

Course Reflection

Mia A. Lehto

ENG 101

Professor Kardell

Arizona State University

November 29th, 2018

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Course Reflection

Throughout this writing project, I felt a lot more comfortable with what I was doing and

how to do it compared to the last writing assignment. It was easy to choose our topic and identify

our audience. We chose a topic that related to our generation so that we could be able to talk to

the class as our audience. As of right now, I feel as though my team members don’t believe they

can count on me as a team member. It could just be me overstressing about the writing project,

but I would understand where they’re coming from since I didn’t add to our presentation until

right before our group was about to present for the draft assignment. I didn’t add to it until then

because my team discussed that I was going to be the one to open the project and present what

we chose and what we did. I didn’t think that that information needed an individual slide since I

could just relay the information during the title page.

Certainly, the hardest part of my writing experience in this course would be the

ethnographic study. It was difficult at first to understand what the final product was supposed to

be with such a short amount of time to conduct the study. Once I became a little more

comfortable with what I was doing and how I was conducting it through my writing process, I

felt a bit more comfortable with my final submission. On the other hand, the identity writing

assignment and the visual analysis writing assignment I had a lot more understanding with what I

was doing and how to complete the final product. I would say that the ethnographic study draft

writing assignment took such a hard grade because I didn’t understand what I was doing. The

peer reviews and group work were helpful to my final performance for that writing assignment. I

feel as though every peer review really helped me through each writing assignment but pushed

me to my protentional for the ethnographic study. I really enjoyed the identity writing processes

because it was like I was finding myself because I had given up on some of the characteristics
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that made me who I am for social acceptance when I was younger. It was nice to reflect and take

a sort of control back onto my life. The writing processes for the visual analysis portion were

quite easy to be since most of my previous writing before this class focused on description and

underlying meaning of items that could be pronounced as symbols.

Overall, throughout the semester, I honestly don’t feel as though my writing skills

became any better that when I started. I do feel as I have a better understanding of how to set up

the correct format for my papers since that was something, I was completely oblivious to at the

beginning of the semester. Throughout the semester I kept doubting my writing skills, so I was

always very impressed with the scores I received for my final papers. If I had to retake the course

knowing full well what assignment were ahead of me, I’d keep my final identity paper and

submit that as a draft then improve it tremendously to allow for a better connection between

writer and reader. For the visual analysis writing assignment, I probably won’t choose Marilyn

Monroe again. I chose her because I knew that she was a giant historical figure, but I knew

nothing about her so describing her as if I knew nothing about her was completely honest. But I

would keep that process of mine in choosing the next person. I would change my topic for the

ethnographic study. The topic I chose didn’t interest me and often kept me bored.

For the future of my writing, I need to work on not adding buzz words to my writing as if

I were speaking and I need to resist the urge to provide filler words to meet word counts and

improve my vocabulary. I feel as though these factors put my writing works at a lower level than

what they should be. I often find myself looking for synonyms of words I overused or finding

synonyms to words I find to be near a 5th grade level. I do enjoy the use of symbols in other

writings that I enjoy reading, such as You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense by

Charles Bukowski which so happens to be made up entirely of poetry, something that I didn’t
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enjoy in high school. I feel as though this course helped me not include my buzz words and filler

words, but I still need to improve my vocabulary in order to become a better writer.