Lauren Allen

Prof. Kathy Deizwala

Comp. 101
04 May 2014

Reflection Letter

In the beginning of my English 101 class I felt as though I was already a pretty good
writer. During my time in class I learned that there is more to writing than just the writing itself.
I didnt realize that I struggled as a reader with analyzing the text and identifying the different
themes in the stories we were beginning to read. My biggest help came from my professor
showing us her note taking method and how my professor analysiss the text. I also received
huge amount of help with my essays from sessions in the CAPPE center from my English
professor. In this course we had a course website that obtained many different resources I found
helpful. The course website gave examples of how to write a textual analysis and a one-line
analysis. This was very helpful to me as I had never written either type of essays prior to this
course. When writing a textual analysis I learned what is needed and has to be included to write a
correct textual analysis. One must identify the ideology of the text. In other words one must
identify the way the author views things in his/her text. My biggest frustration with my textual
analysis was getting my analysis to meet the length requirements. I was able to make my textual
analysis longer and stronger with the help of the critique my professor gave me. Out of the
assignments assigned to us, I enjoyed my textual analysis and my compare and contrast essay. I
enjoyed these two assignments the most because when I first started them I didnt think that my
work was on the right track. After receiving my feedback from my professor and being giving
the extra push needed to make them better, I obtained a higher grade than I thought I would get.
Throughout this course I have learned that my weakness as a writer is the actual start of writing
my essays. Sometimes I procrastinate with the initial start of sitting down and beginning the
process. My biggest strength however, is my ability to analyze the characters in a story and
identifying the point/theory authors that authors try to get across to their readers. On a scale of 1-
10 with 10 being the highest, I would give myself an 8 on composing my Circulating Critical
Edition project. Thinking about the actual process of my Circulating Critical Edition, I would say
that I enjoyed designing it the most. The thing I would say I disliked the most about the process
was the editing and little minor details needed to tweak it and make it unique. When writing
another academic essay I would reread the text I have to write about in greater detail and I would
start the actual process in advance to allow more time to edit and correct my work.