Reflection

I am a mother before I am anything. I put that out there because my kids are my life. I have been a single mom for the last 20 years which has been a struggle; partly because I never graduated from high school and also because I had kids really young. But I have been blessed every day of my life, by our gracious father in heaven, Jesus Christ. It is in him where I get my strength. My journey to get here, started two years ago, when I enrolled myself in college classes. My goals were to attain my degree, and possibly end up with a good job; I will be graduating this coming winter. So here I am, in my third and last required English class; there is no doubt that this one was the most difficult one by far. I started this quarter pretty confident about my writing skills, but once I started to get feedback from Lolly and Andrea, I realized that I needed to review the fundamentals again. Having my handbook, as well as help from Lolly and Andrea, saved my butt on more than one occasion. I would have to say that our essay assignments were the most challenging part of this class.

     My first essay assignment on Identity was not my best work. Right off the bat I struggled with the thesis concept; as a result of this, I didn’t successfully write a paper that included arguments to support my thesis. The good news is that I was able to strengthen my writing skills enormously; this was shown later, by a better written paper and grade, on essay number two on communities. This particular essay was difficult initially, because the concept of community had to be explained in a literal term; eventually I was able to gain a clearer understanding of what this meant. A timed writing essay followed in the “intermission unit”; here we were assigned to watch a film, discuss it, watch it again, and then show our understanding of two relative concepts, identity and community in 60 minutes or less. The next assigned essay in the “tradition unit” was less of a challenge for me, as far as bringing together a strong paper. I probably enjoyed writing this paper more than any of the other papers because I felt passionate about the concept. The essay assignments were only a part of each week’s tasks; there were also discussion boards, reading assignments, and our paper talk groups.

     Our discussion board assignments were a major part of our work this quarter; they allowed us to write more openly about issues, without the structure of an essay. This is a place where people were encouraged to share their views, and there were no wrong or right opinions. The hardest part for me was accepting views other than my own, when involving personal issues like race or social class. Often, I had to remind myself about the need for an open mind. These forums also gave us an opportunity to show how we can challenge another student’s opinion, but still remain objective. There was one discussion board assignment that had us delving into the "insiders versus outsiders" aspect of communities and evoked a small amount controversy; our class was a large and diverse group of people, so it seemed likely that there would be some hurt feelings. I also felt that there was narrow minded thinking present here, but nothing overly contentious. Again, we were all learning together.

      This was also the case in “paper talk”, a place where groups met to discuss there struggles or concerns with their essay assignments. It was here that my eyes were open to some ugly stuff that goes on in the world, when I chose “Rabbit Proof Fence” for the movie assignment.  Rabbit Proof Fence was an amazing example of what the human spirit is capable of, but it also showed us how expendable people can become if the majority doesn't see them serving a specific purpose in their world. The discussion board and paper talk both allowed us to find out more about each other; I took advantage of this opportunity and got to know a few of my classmates better. All of the work assigned to us this quarter, involved a specific methodology, which relied on students to use the resources given to successfully and collectively complete each unit.

    Finally, building my e-portfolio was a really fun but challenging task, and I have spent many hours choosing what writing pieces to use, as well as the background and templates. I chose to use my blog assignment on tradition, as my writer’s choice piece. I feel that my heart went into writing this blog because it brought back happy memories of my family, and our heritage. What makes this piece stand out is my ability to keep the reader interested. Next, my revision piece wound up being my first essay assignment on identity. This was a paper that I originally thought was good work, but I found out later it sucked. So I tried to redeem myself and change most of the paper. I changed the organization in some paragraphs, and worked on developing stronger transitional sentences. I think I did an alright job. The paper that best reflected me as a voice and the reader as an audience, was my discussion board post on identity. This assignment gave me an opportunity to use my personal opinions to defend my heritage; so it seemed logical to use this paper as my “Voice” piece. Next I needed to find a paper that I had put some real thought into; a paper that reflected my ability to analyze and examine a subject in great detail in order to fully understand it. A discussion board post of mine from the identify unit was a good example of my perception and use of these concepts, when I did a comparison of two authors and their work; so naturally I used this paper as my critical thinking piece.

     My last contribution to the e-portfolio is this letter of reflection. All and all, I feel that English 101 was an invaluable experience that has greatly enriched my personal and scholastic life. I learned about my strengths as well as my weaknesses. I pushed through hard times when I did not see a solution anywhere near, and I showed myself that I am capable of really great things. I could not have done any of this without the help of Andrea, Lolly, or my fellow students; for this, I thank you all.
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