Nazareno 1 Meghan Nazareno Dr.

Lynda Haas Writing 37 30 March 2014 Reflection Essay I woke up at 7:45 on a Thursday morning expecting to get a spot in every class I wanted; but my assurance was shot down once I discovered that it only took less than a minute for WebReg to crash my browser; and it took more than 45 minutes to begin signing up for my classes because of the hundreds of UC Irvine freshmen the on registration server. I finished applying to the courses I planned to take, only to have the waitlist status show up on my window one of them being my Writing 37 class. Luckily, I arrived to Professor Haass first day of lecture in room 122 and was given the chance to enroll in her afternoon class. I never knew the purpose of Writing 37 or that each Writing 37 class had a theme, so it took me by surprise when she told us that we will be analyzing Sir Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes text and the modern-day mystery detective genre displayed in television and movies. I always struggled reading the Sherlock Holmes novels and composing text in general, but I was never more excited and curious for a writing class. However, I underestimated the difficulty and workload of the class before signing up 6 units was not intimidating at the time. I would soon learn how to improve my time management; a skill I will use for the years to come. Our months agenda was already prepared and posted up on our writing studio where I browsed through the weekly assignments and tasks; and I knew that this was going to be a demanding winter quarter. It was only week one of winter quarter and every classmate and I presented ourselves in front of these strangers in preparation of choosing whom to work with as a

Nazareno 2 group for the next 9 weeks with our individual modern-day Sherlock Holmes films or television series. My group consisted of three shy, but dedicated and responsible, classmates. We were to specialize in the television series, Psych; but before we researched and analyzed this modern-day text, we had to organize weekly presentations and speak in front of our peers, read novels, and become scholars. Our first group presentation was a 15 minute lecture on Victorian Londons popular culture, having less than two days to prepare it all; and this was to repeat almost every week. The topic was interesting and there was abundant amount of information pertaining to it which made it challenging to summarize and form what we wanted to present; we gave each other blank stares for more than a couple of minutes trying to figure out an efficient solution. It was difficult to scheme our plan at first because of our inflexible class schedules and extracurricular, but we created a group chat that provided us with a way of communication. We separated the subjects within Victorian Londons popular culture and we would specialize in our own areas: I would become a scholar in the economic classs fashion and beliefs, and another in public entertainment, transportation, or medicine. It was our first ever presentation a Thursday afternoon - and I felt the anxiety and stress from my group members. I remember telling them that we will feel great once were done; we definitely did. Our communication for planning the project was good, though the timespan of each of our speaking parts was not well planned. We either demonstrated our part of the presentation longer or shorter than needed and we only spoke of the facts with no audience engagement or connections to Sherlock Holmes making our presentation fall flat. Presenting to a class can be nerve wrecking, especially when its filled with intelligent college studen ts who are just as capable as the group and I. However, we improved overtime through extra practice.

Nazareno 3 Engaging with our peers slowly became easier and less fretful. Not only did this prepare me for the upcoming essays and RIP Seminar, but as a future Software Engineer with a management minor, it is a skill that I need to develop; and the heavy practice in Professor Haass class makes me look forward to communication towards larger audiences. Still, speaking in front of my peers is unlike displaying my knowledge in the mystery conventions in my own written text. I already dreaded the thought of writing the first essay when we first discussed what was expected during class; the expectations were high. Writing was always my weakest subject and I unfortunately avoided writing as much as possible in high school. I was in this class because I did not fulfill the requirements for Writing 39B or 39C. I knew, how to summarize, but not how to properly analyze, as Professor Haas said mid-quarter; so I thought that meant my writing was at least decent. I admit that I considered my grammar and language use nearly proper, so the Connect Grammar and Language assignments were, at first, a bore and waste of time to me. There were times where I would be caught in certain modules, which only led to frustration and impatience. I stayed persistent and open to relearning my earlier education language rules taught, and always kept in mind the grammar rules and appropriate syntax necessary to create an effective analytical essay because my performance clearly showed that I was bad at identifying adjectives, and summarizing and paraphrasing. It also made peer editing for my peers effortless as I knew what to find and improve for their essays as well. Professor Bob Haas explained to us what it meant to analyze; its deliberated as a simple task, and until now it is one of the most perplexing talents I have yet to discover. If one were to tell me to explain in analytical steps of why a child touches a hot stove and learns to not touch it again, I could easily tell that person why. Implementing this in an essay pertaining to the mystery genre convention is as difficult as it seems though. I easily analyzed the apparent and

Nazareno 4 recognizable specifics; yet miscarried at being more specific and detailed with my textual analysis. Pulling out the minute details would carry more insight, as Professor Haas advised for my, The Incompetent Police, essay. Hence why I will fully revise it. The frailest aspect of my second essay was my analyzing the film elements in Psych to understand how comedy is added, so I will only focus on my paragraph referring to analyzing the film elements because I realized how vague I was. I knew my film terms and I clearly referred to the Yale website that supplied me with information on camera and sound effects in film, but I never described or analyzed how this was displayed in Psych. The use of passive voice and syntax mistakes indicated that my writing is still far from exceptional. I will have to write codes on a daily basis once I find internships and a career in software developing. A programming language consists of proper composition and the correct arrangements of variables and structures similar, if not exactly, to the English language. Refining my use of diction and syntax will take endless amounts of repetition. The last thing I want to display is a weak and ill-written cover letter or code-example to a position I want to earn in the near future. After week 8, I assumed that the heavy workload would decrease. My grade was no longer to be impacted by quizzes or blogs, even though we still wrote more, but based on the upcoming RIP Seminar that we had to present to the other class. For the seminar, I volunteered to be one of the presenters for our class. I discussed the important genre conventions; specifically stock characters. Later on, as in a few minutes after, I described Psych and how it portrayed our modern culture, differing from the Victorian culture. Our classs presentation was a well-planned performance; with fluid transitions and everyone knowing their roles to make sure everything ran smoothly. For example, our prior rehearsal

Nazareno 5 helped the presenters, actors, and actresses practice their lines and what to specify on. Having the script broken down into different scenes and new screenwriters provided creative ideas for the speakers to undertake. I gained more experience while working together with a large group of people. When I found out that we would have to all make one large presentation, I did not find it possible at first without others feeling uninvolved; but each classmate was given an important responsibility and role. Contented with the amount of effort and cooperation to put into our production, going into depth about Victorian Londons society, creating weekly presentations, and discussing the Sherlock Holmes novels made it easier to narrow down important information for our seminar; thus making it worth the exertion and determination with no regrets of choosing to enroll in this class. I sometimes found a few assignments unnecessary, but Professor Haas created a learning strategy that lead to an exceptional outcome. Alas, it is week 10 of spring quarter, and my voyage through Professor Haass Writing 37 class is coming to an end. I published my final revisions and reflection essay on my ePortfolio blog. Cooperation and communication, and delegating responsibility between peers, are two important traits I especially want to develop throughout the years to come. If I can master these characteristics, it would also mean that my public speaking, English, and time management enhanced as well. My spring allergies are kicking in making it seem as if tears are falling down my tired finals week face because Im upset with leaving this class, unlike how I was first stressed of beginning this course approximately 9 weeks ago; but I really am going to miss going to room 122 every Tuesday and Thursday morning. From the tradition of going to Brandywine with my classmates immediately after class complaining about how difficult and unreasonable the workload is to already reminiscing the many experiences and challenges we gained.