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Crysbelle Lopez Professor Lynda Haas Writing 37 December 8, 2013 Reflection Essay Through the transgression of time, we all tend to learn something new from the various experiences we undergo. No matter where we might beat school, at our jobs, or even at homethere is always something from which you will obtain a valuable lesson from. Sometimes it is these particular moments that teach us the important fundamentals that will accompany us in the years to come. At the commencement of this Writing 37 course, my writing and presentation skills were proficient. My basic understand came from the multiple AP classes I had taken during the course of my high school years and it was with this knowledge that I imagined getting through the rigorousness of this course. However, the workload and expectations resulted to be more demanding than I had anticipated. My weaknesses in writing were many and my strengths were not enough to balance me out in regards to the expectations of the course. Although my writing and presentation skills were not up to scale with the demands of the course, it was through essay writing, group presentations, and the conduction of a seminar that I was able to elevate my level of understanding and grow not only in my writing but in my overall confidence in character as well. The first day of instruction was full of surprises for me. This being my first college writing course, I didnt know what to expect from the professor and the strict requirements that

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would come from enrolling in this class. As I read the class syllabus, one of the things that stunned me was the unique grading contract of the course. In order for me to obtain a B in the class, the commitment I had to make was to carry out all the assignments given and turn them on their due dates. This was distinctively new to me since the only grading contract I was accustomed to concentrate more on the quality of my work and not the quantity. It was this grading rubric that helped me visualize the level of responsibility I had to maintain in order to achieve in the course. When it was announced that the main focus of our analysis throughout the quarter would revolve around the zombie theme, I was astonished. I was not really familiar with this particular theme; however, my curiosity about learning something new kept me encouraged on what the course had to offer. To commence our zombie theme analysis, we were assigned to analyze a particular film and determine the various conventions in relation to the horror-zombie genre. The majority of the projects we did in this class were done in groups which we were all assigned to from the beginning. The first assignment we carried out was the presentation of our film analysis and its rhetorical situation. My group carried out the analysis of the film entitled 28 Days Later directed by Danny Boyle. This was the first on-class presentation we carried out as a group and the overall results were not as satisfying as we had hoped. After each presentation, groups would receive feedback on what their strengths and weaknesses were in their overall presentation. My group presentation lacked visuals, was very wordy between slides, and all of us struggled to present without reading from the slides. As a team we realized just how much improvement had to be made in our working strategies. In terms of individual performance, I came to realize that my engagement in the work I presented had to escalate if any improvement was to be made. Taking

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into account all the advice we received as a group from our classmates and professor, we carried out the revision of our first presentation which resulted in great success. The engagement each team member had towards their individual responsibilities and the openness we had to the comments of other students helped us carry out a more creative and college level presentation. These particular conventions we discussed about in our presentations were the basic fundamentals of our first genre essay. Having focused on genre and the rhetorical situation behind specific media types such as the film analysis we conducted previously, we were asked to evaluate what conventions were involved in developing the overall message of a particular film and why it was important. The main purpose of this genre essay was to take into account all the information we learned about genre and in detail describe the reasons why the conventions were used in the film and the message the directors and screenwriters were conveying in their work. The establishment of my first genre essay was a bit overwhelming. There was so much information that was presented to me in the first few weeks of class; my ideas about what to incorporate into this essay were many. I had a very difficult time trying to organize my thoughts into a well written scholarly essay. After each rough draft, our main focus was to be able to provide detailed revision feedback to other classmates in an effort to better assist them and provide input on how to improve the overall content of each essay. Based on the various comments I received in my first essay, my main struggles revolved around redundancy and lack of analysis. There were so many things I wanted to discuss in my essay that I only found myself repeating the same ideas over and over again. I was not elaborating my ideas fully, resulting in the loss of my overall concept organization. Another area of struggle was the

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incorporation of minimal analysis. The fact that I was including too much summarization in my essay didnt allow me to show the readers my expertise on the genre concept. It was from here that I knew my writing skills had to become more elevated if I wanted to achieve that level of college writing this course was implementing. This overwhelming experience was not the case when it came time to write my second essay. Aside from analyzing films, we also placed a great focus on the analyzing of the novel, World War Z. Similarly to the genre essay we had conducted in the beginning of the quarter, we were asked to create an essay which gave a detailed rhetorical analysis of the novel. In this particular essay, I chose to discuss about the ways in which this particular story fit into the novel genre. As I wrote this essay, I reflected back on the comments and suggestion I received on my first essay and took them into consideration. It was because of my persistence that I was able to write a more detailed and well organized essay. Acknowledging the great improvement I needed to make in my first essay helped me strive to establish a well organized essay the second time around. I began to visually see my analyzing skills improving and my essay showed much organization. Alongside the writing of a rhetorical analysis essay, we were asked to carry out yet again another set of power point presentations to the class. The last two presentations conducted in our class included the character analysis of characters from within the novel and the connection of the novel to cultural situations. Throughout the course of these group projects, our presentation skills were also put to the test. The various group presentations we carried out through the transgression of the course helped me grow more in confidence. As mentioned previously, our first presentation did not go as planned and one of the areas in which we all struggled as a class was in our presentation of the information. The majority of the groups had a

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difficult time not reading from their power point slides or note cards. It was as time progressed that slowly, each of us began to combat the fear of public speaking. I began to see great improvement in my confidence when it came down to presenting in front of the class. During my first presentation, I choked on my words and stuttered the majority of the time. As I became more knowledgeable about the information I was presenting and continued to practice speaking in front of the class during our presentations, I found it less nerve racking and I began to gain confidence in myself. When it came time to conduct our seminar in front of another group of Writing 37 students, I could not have been more prepared. The fact that we had dedicated so much time in class to perfecting our presentation skills made it easier for me. At the start of the course, I struggled with presenting in front of the class. Aside from the nerves, the fact that I was so accustomed to reading from the slides made it difficult for me to utilize nothing but significant images to remind me of what it was I was going to talk about. Of course all of the information I had to present during the seminar was something I had to gather from having done in depth analysis of the novel and film. The process of writing the genre and rhetorical analysis essays helped me identify the important element of which I had to discuss. I was able to pinpoint the important facts and present only those which I thought were necessary. It was during the seminar that all of the knowledge I had attained from the course came into play. During the presentation of the seminar there was a lot of information we had to present, but because of our flexibility we knew exactly what was expected of us and how we would carry out our information in order to succeed. It was during the transgression of the seminar that I was able to compare my skills to other students and in turn help me realize great progress I had made since the start of the course.

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My overall experience in this Writing 37 course has taught me a lot. I have gained more knowledge on how to better perfect both my writing and presentation skills in the years to come. The knowledge I have acquired from this class has not only helped me develop in my writing; it has given me numerous skills that will help develop in character. Metacognition is a habit of mind that I will hold dearly not only in respect to this course, but to everything I do in the years to come. I know that everything I have obtained from this course is applicable to various aspects of life and one day I will be able to look back and reflect on all the great knowledge I have received. Thanks to the great dedication of both my professor and classmates, I continue my journey in writing with great confidence.

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