Final Reflection

This semester was very stressful for me because I have never been the best at writing papers. When I first received the schedule for the semester, I saw that the writing projects were assigned right after the other. The thought of having to complete so many papers with limited time overwhelmed me. Each writing project got progressively harder and there was more expected from us. Over the course of time, I truly believe I became a better and stronger writer. I learned how to properly do in-text citations, how to make an annotated bibliography, and how to make the paper flow. Before taking this course I would put citation after citation without doing a synthesis on one before bringing up the other. Dr. Wielgos taught me how to introduce an author and a citation. I learned that by doing a synthesis on a citation, it not only made my paper stronger, but it also made it longer. As opposed to having a super long citations which leads to the reader coming up with their own synthesis of the citation, and it may not be what the writer intended to say. Dr Wielgos took the time to explain each writing project with detail and put emphasis on what was expected of us. Being held to so many expectations allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and write from my heart and eventually become passionate about what I was writing, which I believe it what made me a better writer. This course allowed me to challenge myself and write every paper with the best of my ability. I loved taking this class. I enjoyed having such a one-on-one experience because our class was pretty small, and I truly enjoyed working with my classmates and teacher. The Experience Synthesis Essay allowed me to write about an important event in my life, meeting my boyfriend. I wrote about the concept of love and what I believe love is. This essay was easy to write because it was based on my personal experience and a topic I was passionate about. The Explanatory Synthesis paper was one of my favorite papers to write. I wrote about why cheerleading is a sport. I cheered for four years and cheer became a big part of my life. My life consisted of eat, sleep, cheer, repeat. People would always tell me that cheerleading wasn't a sport to make me angry, and it always worked. I took the opportunity to get all that anger off my chest and explain why cheerleading is a sport. The Researched Argument Synthesis paper was stressful because it involved doing research. I wrote about why parents shouldn't allow their child under the age of 8 to play football and it is something that I am truly passionate about. Children are our future so why not look after them? The Research Presentation involved summarizing the most important points in our paper, as well as the opposing view and presenting it. Overall, the 4 writing projects were very fun to write and I strongly believe that my writing progressed with each of the papers. I cannot express how happy I am to have been a part of this class. I really enjoyed this semester in general and this class definitely factored into that enjoyment. My classmates were helpful and I enjoyed being in class with them, and I truly appreciate my teacher and his teaching methods and style. Classes are almost all about the teacher to me, they either make or break it. As far as this class is concerned, the teacher definitely helped make it.