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Marlyn Moring

Professor Batty

English 101

11 December 2019

Reflective Essay

Being a college student is tough and it is stressful especially if you are one of those

students who were out of school for years and I was one of those students. For instance, I

struggled coping up with the others because I am not socially active, but I was thankful since I’m

with my brother and luckily some of my friends were my classmates too. Also, I struggled

writing an essay that it came to the point where I forgot how to start writing an essay and

organizing it. Furthermore, in the entire Fall semester in my English class I learned some new

things that I wish I had discovered before, so I could make my writing much better back then and

at this time. Not only have I learned about writing and organizing an essay, but I improve my

reading critical reading skills, since throughout the semester we read one graphic novel, which is

The Best We Could Do ​by Thi Bui and four readings from the article titled ​Two Ways to Belong

in America ​by Bharati Mukherjee, ​History Tells Hard Lessons of Ethnic Classes ​by Leonard Pitts

Jr, ​How To Tame A Wild Tongue ​by Gloria Anzaldua and ​Excerpt From Hunger of Memory The

Education of Richard Rodriguez ​by Richard Rodriguez.

As a freshman college student who became one of those students who were out of school

for years was kind of difficult, since it feels like it was my first time being a student. To begin

with, I struggled writing an essay that I end up taking forever to come up with an idea of what to
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write on my essay and I was having a hard time organizing the essay that I was working on. With

that I had to look for my essay that I wrote before when I was in high school in order to base the

format of an essay. There were a lot of resources on campus to help me make my writing better,

but I did not take that opportunity especially on going to the Writing Center or one of those free

workshops that held in LARC 212. I regret not going on one of those campus resources, but I did

the NetTutor, which is the LACCD online tutoring, which I feel like it is convenient for people

like me who is comfortable being tutored not personally. In addition, throughout my time in

English class I learned new things like how to format the quotes correctly in an essay using the

“Quote Sandwich” that consists of three parts such as bread on the top means introduce quote,

good stuff in the middle means quote and bread on bottom means commentary on quote. Besides

learning how to organize my essay I learned that there are also some strategies on how to edit an

essay and there are minimal five parts in writing a good argumentative essay, which includes

introductory section, main argument, objection, reply and the concluding section. One of those

new things I learned as well is how to write a graphic novel, which is kind of really hard because

you have to put a lot of time and effort into it. As a result of writing a graphic novel I learned

that there are techniques like visual rhetoric and there are kinds of gutter transitions, which helps

you better understand or read a graphic novel.

In conclusion, I am hoping to continue my improvement in developing my writing skills

especially on being able to come up with an idea without taking forever of thinking what to write

on the essay, and I wanted to be that person who were capable of writing a strong persuasive

essay. Apart from that, I want to improve my reading skills like being able to understand the

article or story without reading it a few times. I will apply what I have learned throughout this
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semester in my English class by writing an effective essay or a persuasive essay, and I will share

my knowledge to some of my friends or peers to help them improve their work. More

importantly, it will increase my chances of getting a job by writing a great resume.