ENGL 2010

Before taking the ENGL 2010 course, I didn't have a lot of trouble with the English classes I took previously. I did several traditional essays for years and assumed that this class wouldn't be much different from what I already did before. There were essays that I completed in this course that I surprisingly enjoyed. I loved the fact that I was able to pick a topic in order to write the first three assigned essays and found myself to be more engaged in the assignments than I normally would if I was to write about a certain topic assigned by the professor. By being able to choose my topic, I found myself enjoying the research about the topic and was able to write more than I usually would have been able to.

Although I enjoyed delving deeper into my chosen topic for the three essays, I found the writing assignments to be more challenging than a typical essay. I did not have too much problems writing my memoir since I have written one before, but I felt uncomfortable with the evaluation and proposal essay. These were two very new types of essays for me, and although I struggled with these two assignments, I felt like I learned a lot from reading my classmates essays and getting feedback from them and the professor. The peer review workshops really broadened my perspective since I was getting a lot of different inputs from my classmates. I was able to build my ideas more strongly from the workshops and it gave me a better direction on how I wanted to approach my topic because I was able to discuss what I felt I needed help in and a guidance towards what direction I should take in order to help me develop from my ideas that I already had down.

One of the hugest challenges I faced was doing something other than a traditional essay. It was out of my comfort zone to make a powerpoint that would be able to include all of the required things for the assignment. I struggled with the idea of making this assignment more engaging than an essay by using pictures and less words. However, as I was creating the powerpoint for this assignment, I felt like it was a perfect fit for a proposal. It was difficult trying to break away from writing an essay, but I felt like I had gotten a good feel of how I should present the assignment as a powerpoint. I definitely enjoyed making a powerpoint for an assignment compared to writing an essay. I was still nervous about the assignment since it was very new to me, but I still enjoyed doing something different than an essay. It also made me realize that there are certain methods to present a topic that will suit it better than just a traditional essay, and I hope that I will be able to apply these different methods (powerpoint, comic strip, etc.) in the future.

Throughout this course, I faced a lot of challenges with the different assignments as they forced me out of my comfort zone. These were very in depth assignments that required a lot of time and effort. Although I didn’t get a perfect score on any of my assignments, I believe that the professor was able to see the effort that I put into each assignment even though I was uncomfortable with the assignments being so different from what I am used to. I feel as if I was able to explore new things in writing that made me a stronger writer.