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Reflective Essay

My final project for English 1010 is comprised of three separate assignments.


The first assignment is a Flash narrative. It focuses on the life of a fictional character
named Hudson Burgon who is rushed into the ER after a snowboarding accident. While
in the middle of a life-saving brain surgery, they kill him temporarily in attempt to save
his life. During this time he experiences the afterlife, which is why the title is called The
Afterlife. The second assignment I did was my Rhetorical Analysis. I analyzed an article
written by Arielle Bernstein about a refugee’s take on a minimalist lifestyle. I also
compared it to an article about what refugees go through mentally and physically. They
had very different ways that they implied rhetoric but overall they were both well written.
I chose this topic because refugee’s are an important issue and I wanted to see their
approach on getting their individual messages accross. My last assignment for my final
project was my civic engagement project. For my civic engagement project I chose to
create a website to inform the public and help solve the problem of poverty within Utah
Schools. I chose this topic because my mom is the head secretary at a school where a
lot of the students live below the poverty level and there are also a lot of kids living
under the poverty level at my school and I wanted to do my part to help solve this
problem. Throughout this class I’ve learned a lot and I’ve learned to be a better writer
and a better reader.
My flash narrative came from a list of a few pretty basic prompts. I decided to
choose one about the afterlife because I felt like it would be the most intresting to write
about and I felt like it was something I could be creative with. After deciding on my topic,
I started slowly building up the rest of the plot. I had to decide why he was dead, if he
was going to come back, and other small details. I wrote a rough draft then got peer
reviews before writing my second draft. After a few touch-ups I had my final draft (or at
least what I thought would be my final draft.) Later after reading it I realized I wasn’t
really happy with how it ended. I made the decision to completely take out the last
couple paragraphs and added quite a few more to the end. I also had to go through and
change a few details throughout to make my story make sense. In the end I think it
came together pretty well. If I wanted to make the story longer I could’ve added more
details and could’ve continued on with it but I’m happy with how it turned out.
For my rhetorical analysis we were given quite a few articles to choose from. I
read through a bunch before deciding on the one I did. I chose it in part because I didn’t
know a whole lot about refugees. No one in my family has had to go through that and
I’m grateful for that but I think it’s still important to be educated on what’s happening and
about topics that aren’t directly related to my situation. I also thought the title was
interesting. It got me wondering what living a minimalist lifestyle had anything to do with
refugees. After I read through the article I found her use of rhetoric interesting. She had
a lot of stories from people close to her and she seemed educated on the topic. This
assignment also included a rough draft and peer reviews before I could write my second
draft. The peer reviews helped me a lot because sometimes my classmates can catch
mistakes that I missed or give me suggestions on what I can add to make my writing
better. I also included major revisions to this assignment. My main revision I included in
my final draft was my comparison of my original article to another article about a similar
but different topic. As I mentioned before, the second article I analyzed was about the
effects of being a refugee and it talked about just some of the things they go through,
unlike the other article, this one used a lot more logos. They used a lot of facts but didn’t
include any personal stories. They were both written well the authors just used different
approaches to reach their audiences.
My civic engagement was probably my favorite throughout this class. We were
encouraged to find an issue that really mattered to us and to actually do something
about it. When we first got this assignment I had no idea what I should do it on. I tried
thinking of some issues I’ve noticed in my community and then I thought of this one. I’ve
done some smaller things in the past that indirectly relate to this project. I’ve collected
food and clothing for our school pantry at Copper Hills and I’ve helped with our winter
fundraiser every year which benefits many kids and families throughout our community.
We use a lot of the funds we raise to help give families Christmas who wouldn’t get one
otherwise and then use the extra that’s left over to help cover expenses of other things
such as funerals and we help make some kids’ wishes come true through the Make A
Wish Foundation. I’ve personally contributed through straight up donations, making
things to sell to bring in more money and even personally shopping for a few of the kids
we helped. I wanted to find a way to get more people involved. I’ve found that a lot of
people are willing to help out it’s just a matter of informing the public. In the beginning I
just made a powerpoint to present through school boards throughout Utah but I realized
it would be unrealistic to meet with every school board in the state of Utah. I ended up
taking my information and making a website. My website helps people get informed on
the topic and gives them ways to help in their own communities and even different
charities they can donate to in order to help the kids who need it.
I believe that throughout the semester I’ve learned and further developed a lot of
important skills. I felt pushed to do better than I have before but not to the point where I
felt like I couldn’t do it. Each project presented a different challenge. The flash narrative
helped me work on some creative writing skills. In my rhetorical analysis, I was pushed
to really focus on not what was being said but how it was being said. It was harder to
get into but once I figured it out it turned out to be not as bad as I expected. My civic
engagement project challenged my public speaking skills when we had to present our
projects to the class and also challeged my ability to actually do something about a
problem instead of just sitting on the side lines. Overall this class has taught me a lot
and I’m excited to see where these skills will take me in the future.

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