Umeugo 1 Ifeanyi Umeugo Ms.

Caruso ENGL 1102 25th of April

Final Reflection This class has been fairly straightforward, the course goals and lesson plans are easily understandable and achievable. I started this class with the idea of bettering my writing skills but with the thought that this course would be the equivalent of my High School English class course load. I was mistaking, my previous writing classes were never as complex as I found this class to be. In the past when assigned with a topic to write on for example a research paper, I would for the most part regurgitate the facts somewhat in my own words and turn it in. A grade would be given and that would be the end of my interaction with the paper. Although this has worked for me in the past I have quickly learned that this process of writing was not acceptable in this course. When writing an essay such as the Historical Inquiry paper I was able to learn that simply restating facts was not what was being asked of me. A well writing paper is supposed interpret information and convey ones opinion on certain aspects of the information being given in the paper. This is how I approached my Historical Inquiry paper. With this newly gained knowledge coupled with the peer reviews, I was able to better construct my papers in both my final proposal and Inquiry Paper. My partners suggested aspect of my paper I needed to work on by either adding more content, clarifying certain sentences or changing the structure of my paragraphs. I ended up

Umeugo 2 instituting a lot of their suggestions into the final drafts. I have never engaged in this level of peer review before and actually found it very helpful. In the case of revision past papers I have writing were never subjected to it. The only thing I would change before handing a paper in would be correcting my grammar. Prior to this class I have always felt that my original drafts for any paper I would write were done with the best of my abilities. I have never thought of going back over them in the attempt to make them better overall. This class has helped my analyze my paper and find key parts of them to alter. This in my opinion makes for a much better and welldeveloped paper. Looking back on this year I feel that I have come a long way from my original way of thinking and understanding of papers/essays. My writing skills have improved dramatically making the quality of my work a lot better. Certain activities in class also aided me in this. For instance the purpose statements and concept draft both helped me centralize the main theme and idea of my papers. From there I was able to keep the bulk of my papers from being jumpy and unclear. I elaborated and gave examples to support my idea/theme instead of simply regurgitating facts that would have kept my paper flat. In essence this class made me conscious of my writing and given me tools on how critique and revise my work.