Reflective Essay

My Reflection
This course was my first writing course in college and although I feel I tried my hardest on each assignment I think I deserve a B+ in this class. In this class I feel I had both strengths and weaknesses. My weaknesses include dyslexia and my overall writing skills; while my strengths include overcoming obstacles I had not faced before in my academic life.
At an early age I was diagnosed with dyslexia, not as severe as some but dyslexia none the less. My parents transferred me to a private elementary school here in Boulder. By doing this they hoped I would get more one on one attention. At this school I had a private tutor. I would meet with her a couple times a week. In the beginning it was determined through standardized tests that both my reading and writing abilities were well below proficient. I spent two full years with my tutor trying different methods to help me read and write better. Slowly but steadily I caught up to my classmates. Even though I am now considered proficient in both categories, I sometimes still have trouble with reading and writing. I’m not a very fast reader and most times I have to re-read things to fully comprehend the meaning. Unfortunately I think this inability has hindered my performance in the class. Although I feel I have tried really hard and have put in a lot of time my scores especially on the narrative essay don’t reflect that. At the beginning of the semester I was quite lacking in organizational skills. In high school, we weren’t assigned much formal writing, so my base for organization was not solid. I think this is one of the places I have most improved over the past semester. I myself can see an improvement between the organization of the narrative essay and the research paper. Although my organization now may not be great, I think it is one of the areas in which I’ve improved the most. Because my organization isn’t great I don’t think I deserve an A, but due to my improvement I think I deserve a B+. Another thing I have a hard time with is procrastination. I know it’s not good but it just always seems to happen. I think your class has significantly helped me begin to overcome this bad habit by setting numerous deadlines and having many revisions due. In high school a teacher would assign a paper and then a month it was due. There would be no dead lines in between and unfortunately I would find myself a couple nights before the deadline with a blank sheet of paper. I feel that by having at least one new draft due each week really helps me to just sit down and do the work rather than put it off. I am going to try and employ this in my academic life by setting personal deadlines for revisions or any other multi-step processes. I know my best work happens when I edit and revise many times so hopefully by employing this new strategy assignments will become easier and less stressful. I have already begun to combat this bad habit by setting up appointments with the writing center to help critique my work outside of class. I think by going to the writing center multiple times and showing up for every workshop it shows that I really do care and try on each assignment which is why I think I deserve a B+. Although I did have weaknesses there were some things I felt I did well during this course. The use of citing and references was a brand new topic for me. In high school, we used bibliographies but there, they were not as formal, and the papers didn’t use in-text citations. To my surprise, I feel I picked up on this idea rather quickly and it really makes sense to me. Along with citations, I feel I have gained a very good understanding of the library’s database and until this past semester I had never used it. This database was extremely helpful in finding the scholarly journal articles I needed to complete my research paper. Finally, I remember the first day you had assigned the rhetorical analysis and I was quite intimidated having never done one before. With time and energy, I cranked through each one and got more comfortable each time. Also, my grades improved with each one and by the third they were a breeze. I am happy I learned how to do a rhetorical analysis but more importantly I proved to myself that even something that looked impossible can be done if taken in small parts.