Final Relfection

 

English 112 was an experience I will never forget. I had a teacher named Megan Keaton that you had to get to know before you judge type of person. Coming into this class I was nervous, and very shy around people I was not familiar with. My teacher had her students make name tags; along with a daybook we used every. Day Book This notebook was something I never had before in school. This day book was a private place for your mind to wonder freely. Megan had made us put our chairs together in a circle around the classroom, which I thought was very strange and odd. I never felt so much pressure from strangers I never knew before. When I signed up for this class I thought it was just going to be writing practical argument papers, but my teacher Megan proved me wrong. My teacher throughout this semester brought me into a world of English I never knew existed. The Guide to Argument

                Already confused and thousands of thoughts going through my head, Megan told us that we were going to be using a blog all semester which was going to be where most of our grade came from. A blog ? I had never heard of a blog, let along use/create one ???????. Later on, I learned that this blog was pretty cool; it kept all my thoughts and papers organized. Within the first week of class Megan introduced us to education, which was the main topic all semester. This week we were showed a video in class, and this video changed my view points on schools and thoughts. This gave me the bright idea for my topic that I started writing about “Do schools kill Creativity?” AND there it was before I knew it already the first assignment out teacher Megan assigned to us. THE EXPLORATORY PROPOSAL:  To better help understand assignments we would talk out loud until everyone was done asking questions and fully understood. EP

                Time started to go on in class, and Megan’s goal was for every class meeting to put the desks together in one big circle. I never talked out loud, and never expressed my thoughts without any one caring until I came to this class. I learned in this class, that no matter what a person can say it’s not right or wrong it’s an opinion that people may or may not agree with, which a conversation that keeps flowing. I learned to express my thoughts out loud as a group, instead of staying bundled up inside, which helped me in other classes to do the same technique I did in English 112. Teacher Comments

                Throughout the semester we formed blog groups which were also our work shop groups that got together in class for revising papers. I clearly understood what revision truly means from this class. After each assignment, I would fill out a self-assessment on my blog, that truly showed me where I improved as writer, along with struggled through some of my work. Looking back on my work from the beginning of the semester to now, I would say my writing has improved along with my knowledge.Reading Response I didn’t know what research meant until this class came along in my studies. Most of the time, I would just turn in papers, and reread them once thinking everything was good. Megan showed me goals that needed to be reached, leaving myself in charge to do that. Sometimes in these workshop groups, I would be told some stuff, I never took into acknowledgement or consideration about with my writing. My peers helped me become a better writer not only to sound formal but to be satisfied within myself as a writer also. Workshop

                Megan taught my correct citations to use in MLA formats, along with credible sources. I thought anything you found with an author was useable for a paper. Not in my teacher Megan’s eyes. I also found out a true meaning to Wikipedia, and never used it again. My teacher has pushed my writing process to a whole anther level with creativeness. I didn’t give up in this class, and Megan didn’t let you down unless you let her down. A major assignment that was really helpful to me would be the Visual Analysis. This helped me form a strong topic for my argument paper that was due at the end of the year. I never knew when looking at a picture it can mean so many words. This taught me how to analyze a picture to get its true meaning across. Picking out two pictures was really harder than it sounds. The choosing between two opposing sides for my agreement was a big challenge to me. This helped me really help build a strong relationship for my two sides, with schools killing creativity. Visual Analysis

                The big assignment with research was the Annotated Bibliography. I had to find creditable sources that involved helpful information towards my topic schools killing creativity. It wasn’t until I had to find these sources that made me see that the importance to schools killing creativity was only important to various people, including myself. I learned to quote and paraphrase correctly in this assignment which I never did before. This helped me the most when I had to write, because my authors and how I was going to use the research I found in my paper was all organized. Trust me it sounds way easier than said. I had to find information on both sides of my topic for my paper. Finding quotes for my paper was really interesting and fun to me, because most teachers don’t care about quotes, but Megan did. AB

                The last assignment we had to do before the big put together for the final paper was joining the conversation. Assesment. All the assignments made me realize how to put information together along the way to make things comprehendible. Making work into a dialogue was very easy to me for the first time ever. We had to pick two styles, Rogerian and Toulmin. Bewteen the two I did the best on my Rogerian, and like Megan said all I was ready to do was turn it into an essay.  I really like this because it helped me put together final thoughts for my paper on schools killing creativity. Everything didn’t make sense until this assignment, when I used all my work I had researched and came up with to create dialogues.  Something I had never done before until this class, which I will take with me through all my writing experiences I come across.

                Coming into this class I did not know what to expect. At times I just wanted to give up sitting at the computer; crying thinking my teacher hated me, giving me a hard time. I want to thank my teacher Megan Keaton for showing me writing is a challenge with a beautiful ending. As many times I wanted to give up I kept coming to class, to learn because that’s what I did in this class, learned. Now that I gave this class a chance and my teacher I wouldn’t trade it for anything. This class, my peers, and teacher had really showed me a good learning experience in English 112. This was my last class I had to take of English, and I can’t say it enough that it prepared me for future experiences when it comes to writing. I would not trade anything else for taking this English class, with no better teacher than Megan Keaton. Final Paper