Final Reflection

Over this course I learned a lot in terms of my writing abilities. Before this class, I saw myself as a decent writer, but this class taught me how I could be a better writer. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this course at the beginning of the semester. To be quite honest, I thought ENC 2135 was going to be way easier than I actually was. But that thought that I initially had at the beginning of the semester made me realize that I was just too used to getting by with mediocre work in high school.

Besides teaching me about my writing skills. This class and Mat taught me a lot about myself. I was able to learn to learn good time management, something I didn’t really have before entering college. I was so used to being able to do my homework at the last minute, but there was no room for procrastination over the summer semester. I had to train myself to do my work ahead of time and I helped me to become a more responsible person, and I greatly appreciate Mat for that. Aside from time management, this class also taught me patience.

For my second project I ran into a lot of difficulties when trying to schedule an interview with a local shelter. Though finding a shelter that was willing to have a last minute interview was extremely difficult, Mat stayed patient with me through the entire thing, and in turn I was able to stay patient with myself and not get too frustrated with myself. Though my second project received a C grade, the comments that Mat left helped me to see what mistakes that I made, as well as how I would be able to fix them. I also really appreciated the second paper because it taught me how to integrate myself in paper, having it be personal and factual at the same time.

I also know I’m not the first one to say how this class taught me about genres and textual analysis, things I never learned in previous English classes. Whenever Mat would mention genres and texts for the first few classes, I would always be left confused. But as time went on, I slowly learned what he was talking about. The biggest help in understanding text was the mini-presentations. I really enjoyed textual analysis, especially when students would do their mini-presentations. The class was able to hear students verbally analyze non-traditional text that impacted each of them in a unique way. I really enjoyed my own mini-presentation, which was on the new H&M 2017 Autumn commercial. I know from my own personal experience, as a woman of color, I never really saw people, especially women, who looked like me on television. I also felt like I wasn’t being represented well enough, and I know many other people－other minority groups, LGBTQ community－ in the world felt the same way.