ERWC Reflection

Thu May 19

Dear Mrs. Di Somma,

For my reflection letter I have chosen the Good Food/Bad Food/Proposal, Brave New World/Literary
Analysis, and Bullying Research Paper as well as Into the Wild vocab, dream/reality school lunch, and racial
profiling outline as process work. From this work, I will reflect on what I learned about how to annotate the
text, find evidence to support my claim, properly cite the evidence, integrate quotes that support my claim, and
submit to turnitin.com/Google Classroom, and my strengths of putting together evidence and parenthetical
Citations and weakness of incorperating Ethos/ Logos/Pathos and topic sentences. I will address my academic
essays, skills such as how to Annotate the text, Find evidence to support my claim, Properly cite the evidence,
Integrate quotes that support my claim, and submit essays and assignments to turnitin.com/Google Classroom. I
need to improve in finding Ethos/ Logos/Pathos and using topic sentences and my goal for my writing skills is
to be able to write college level A papers.

Three essays I chose for this assignment were the Good Food/Bad Food/Proposal, Brave New
World/Literary Analysis, and Bullying Research Paper. The Good Food/Bad Food/Proposal describes my
personal plan to decrease obesity and increase the health of American students in public schools. My proposal
includes the mandatory switch over to all organic food in school cafeterias. This would not only increase
overall health of students but shape the next generation to be active and able bodied adults. My second essay
choice was the Brave New World/Literary Analysis which described the dilemma of social media, sex, and drug
abuse in todays society compared with Brave New World. Social interactions in our generation have changed
with the cell phone and social media. We are less communal and more focused on likes and reposts than
real life conversations and interaction. Drugs use is widespread in both worlds and used recreationally. Sex is
desensitized and advertisements today are becoming more direct and focused towards the younger generation.

My final essay I chose is the Bullying Research paper. I described the epidemic of bullying in schools and how
teachers can stop conflicts and assist victims. Student counseling and teacher intervention could potentially
prevent suicides and save lives. My essays would not have been accomplished without the completion of
process work beforehand.

Three pieces of prep-work I chose were Into the Wild vocab, dream/reality school lunch, and racial
profiling outline. The Into the Wild vocab taught me a few new words as well as helped me to fully understand
some of the trickier dialogue in the book. Vocab is my favorite part of English class, so this assignment was a
given to be included in my reflection. My dream/realty school lunch assignment included research of school
lunches. I learned that the food served to us is not healthy, and far from palatable. School funds are set back by
budget cuts by the government and this directly affects food quality and cafeteria options. The Racial Profiling
Outline effectively organized my essay and made writing simple with structured guidelines and
examples(similar to this essay). Manipulating the outline to fit my essay was easy and painless, teaching me
that organization is everything with prep-work. My ability to write academic essays has developed positively
and the skills I learned in ERWC have assisted me tremendously in writing college essays.

I have learned over the course of ERWC how to annotate text. For example, in my Bullying Research
Paper I cited information from James Flemings article, Bullying And Bias: Making Schools Safe For Gay
Students. I proved that sexual orientation based bullying is a problem in todays society caused by ignorant
people. Approximately five to ten percent of youth identify as being gay or transgender. This statistic, used in
my essay, shows that there are more gay youth accepting who they are and coming out to the world. Through
ERWC I have also learned how to find evidence to support my claim. I used scholarly articles found through
EBSCO to find information to cite in my essays. Properly citing information is another skill learned in class.
We used parenthetical citations and made works cited pages to integrate quotes that support my claim. Lastly, I
mastered turnitin.com and google classroom after many assignments submitted. My skills were lacking in the

beginning of the year, but after practice with classmates, I now have important writing skills to use in college
and later in life.

Two strengths of my writing that have been developed over the ERWC course are finding evidence and
using parenthetical citations. I used these strengths in my essays and process work. Two weaknesses that need
further development are incorporating Ethos/ Logos/Pathos and using topic sentences. Although I understood
the concept of Ethos/ Logos/Pathos, I always had a difficult time assimilating these into my essays. I also never
got the hang of topic sentences and could use some extra work on those before college.

After completing the bullying research paper, I can now integrate quotes that support my claim. In the
beginning of the year, I would dump quotes without explanation, now I can use scholarly research databases to
find quotes and integrate them in my essays. I integrated quotes into my research papers as well as some
essays.

I believe my critical reading skills have improved drastically from last year. Annotating, charts, and
activities for the books we were reading helped me to better learn the material and retain information for
assessments. There is always room for improvement and my main focus in the near future will be incorporating
my writing skills into real life. I will need to write resumes and letters to higher authorities for jobs and for
college. Through my Racial Profiling Outline, I concluded that I have a hard time writing a thesis. After some
help from classmates and Mrs. Di Somma, I wrote a fantastic essay and learned to write a decent thesis.
Although there is still room for improvement, I consider myself a better scholar after this course.

I have learned that the expectations for college level reading are more difficult than I first pictured.
Annotating articles and making quote charts helped me greatly to succeed in the course. I can now research
using scholarly databases and find evidence that supports my claim in essays. I also now better understand the
structure of articles and am able to find needed information with ease. I believe I am somewhat prepared for

what is to come in college level classes. The reading and writing in college will be more challenging but I will
use the skills I learned in ERWC to succeed. I will be able to format my essays properly and interpret writing
prompts to fully complete the prompts.

All the best,

Chase Williams