Reflection Essay

This semester in English 250 we have used all the concepts of WOVE in our writing. We
Have written about a place that is important to us, a critical analysis of a place, and an argument about a place. The oral aspect was exercised during class presentations of our jammed ad. Visual aids were used throughout papers whether it was a picture of an ad or our photo essay. We used electronic communication with our blogs and with our power point presentation. All of these projects have dealt with a place because places play an important part in our lives.

The writing process is an important part of communicating with people. This class
Helped me to see that places have formed who I am. Now, I also look at how places have had an impact on my life. At the beginning of this semester I liked to write my entire paper at one time. Throughout the semester we have had to write part of the paper and then expand on our ideas to reach the required amount. This technique involves writing down some of the main points and then having someone look at them and give suggestions about how you could expand and what can be taken out. This makes it easier to make revisions and add things into the paper. Before this semester I didn’t show my work to anyone. I have now started to run my work through several people. This helps me to see what isn’t clear in my writing and to find grammatical errors in the paper. I will look at all the feedback from these people and decide how to work these ideas into my paper. Any part they say needs to be clearer I will see how it can be revised. I look at all the grammatical errors that they have pointed out and the parts that should be expanded and parts that can be taken out. During the semester we have used different ways of communicating with other people. At the beginning of the semester my strongest way of communicating with people was by oral presentations. Throughout the semester I have had to work on developing my other areas of communication. Electronic communication was new to me; I had never composed a blog before. This experience has shown me that electronic communication is a very easy way to share your ideas with a large audience. I have greatly improved with my electronic communication; I learned how to make a blog that is easy to understand. I have also improved in my written work. I had the most problems with writing papers and clearly making my points. I have improved in my writing technique and I am getting better at putting my ideas on paper. I also learned some techniques of adding visuals into my work. In the jammed ad we had to use a power point and I learned new techniques about presenting ideas to people through a power point presentation. My favorite assignment was the argument essay. In this essay I was able to argue about an issue that was relatively local and how it would affect my area and people from my hometown. It also helped me to see that there are many sides to an issue and that they should all be looked at and be given a fair shot.

In conclusion, places have played an important role in everyone’s life. Being able to communicate about these places is what cultivates our relationships with others. The use of different means of communication helps us to be able to express, not only the facts but also, how these places have affected us. This class has helped me learn to better communicate in many different ways; orally, electronically, written, and visually. Because of this class I will better be able to communicate with those I come into contact with both now and in the future.