Reflection 1           

          Writing essays can be very challenging, especially for me. It takes time and progress to get better at it with practice. For someone like me who has English as their second language sometimes causes me trouble when writing. I feel my vocabulary isn’t that large like I would like it to be. Although I know I could read more books and learn more broad words but it’s on me to take the time to do it. My status of writing skills upon entering this course have been very low and yet I still feel they are the same. I find it difficult to write, I just don’t know what to write sometimes. It takes me so much time to get a simple essay done and now I can’t imagine how I will do with longer essay assignments in the future. Although I am learning a little more from reading the book that’s provided in this course, called “The Transition to College Writing,” also from my instructor’s comments on the two essays we have worked on already. The book that’s provided from this course is very helpful, it helps me understand more meanings of how to write, how to understand any obstacle that’s included in writing or reading, and things we go through while writing or trying to begin a paper. It also goes into detail of the transition from High School writing differences with college. It helps me as a first year student understand the transition and makes me think about how much better I can do to improve my writing, reading, and skills in taking notes. In addition, from the past two essays that I turned in I learned I need to stay more on topic and not try to lead my reader into another direction. The key in an essay is to have the departure, direction, and destination.

Reflection 2

          Based on the Midterm Writing Sample Placement Test that I took mid-October my confidence level of passing the final one has gone a little up. From the comments my instructor has made on the one I took and the other essays, it has given me a better look at what to work on with my skills in writing. I feel I do need to improve more in writing because I seem to struggle a lot. The confidence level that I feel that has gone up a little for me is the more experience I’ve had in this class of writing many papers and working with the comments made on my drafts. Although, I still need more improvements in my writing. I feel only a little has changed since the mid-term WSPT and the past essays we’ve turned in. I have a lot of grammar errors in my writing and working with clarity in the content of writing. Sometimes I feel I am making the same mistakes that I have been making since the beginning of the semester yet, I feel I have fixed some. I really wish I did not have so much trouble writing papers but, it’s something I have to deal and work with. For my final WSPT that I will take I plan to put a lot of effort in the writing and remember the mistakes that I make and try to avoid making them again. In addition, I do have hopes in getting a better score on the final WSPT so I can continue on to a regular English class and prosper. I plan to always keep up with writing and work more to improve my skills in writing.

Reflection 3

          As the end of the semester is approaching, I would like to point out some lessons learned from this class and how I will put it to use. The main thing I was looking forward to this class was for extra help in writing in which I did receive. The notes and comments made on all my essays helped me realize what I need to work on while writing. Although, I do need to work more on fixing those errors but, little by little I will. I learned what I do need to fix and a little of how to fix it. I hope to grow better in writing while continuing on to the real English class that I need after passing the final WSPT. The lessons learned in the UNIV 150 class, I will put to use in all future writings I need to complete. My instructor for this class was a great help in pointing out my mistakes in my writing that I will always take in consideration to fix it. In addition, something cool I feel I really enjoyed from this class was learning how to work on this ePortfolio. I had never heard of this cool tool before entering this class. I feel this is a nice way to share writing pieces and I enjoyed working with it. I did hope we could have worked more with it throughout the whole semester instead of just at the end. I am glad I took this class to improve my writing skills because that’s what I was aiming for while I was thinking of taking this class or not before the semester started. I would recommend it to all students who did not pass the first WSPT because it can come in handy. I know there are many students who would think this class would be a waist of time instead of a good thing to take to improve.