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Final Reflection

a.

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The overall topic/theme for our English 1102 course was about conflict. The world sadly revolves around conflict and greed. Politics, healthcare, the economy, sports, etc. are a few areas in society that become widely impacted by conflict. Conflict can arise from Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature or Man vs. Self. My overall experience in my 1102 class, and my previous writing class last semester, happened to be about me trying to overcome an obstacle that has tainted my educational well being my entire life. That is becoming a stronger writer and being confident in my abilities. Before coming to college I struggled with writing consistently good papers. I would occasionally have A worthy papers, but many of my pieces were down graded by grammatical errors, unorganized ideas, and bad habits such as run-on sentences and misplaced commas. I did not know what these college writing classes had in store for me, but heading into college I was questioning how much more strict my professors were going to be if my papers were not even good enough for high school and middle school teachers. However, I have worked my tail off and asked many questions regarding my writing just to know what aspects I need to work on in

my paper(s) and overall skills. By doing this I gained some problem solving experience that way my past errors do not consistently occur in the future. My confidence has grown tremendously and that is why I have included this picture including the quote by Confucius. Writing is something I will be doing for the rest of my life. I have taken the first step in building my confidence and I sure cannot wait to see what it is like to be at the top, because nobody is going to stop me from getting there.

b.

There are a few of ideas of mine that I would emphasize if I taught an

English/Writing1102 class. My overall objective would be to have my students gain confidence in their writing skills as the course progressed. This was something I lacked going into college about my writing skills. However, through these college courses my confidence has sky rocketed as I have worked extremely hard to sharpen every negative aspect of my writing that was pointed out by past English teachers of mine. Our overall class topic was about conflict as it is abundantly found across the world, whether it be politics, war, medical, sports etc. I think I would just have my students write a one to two page paper every week about a different topic/theme. Half of the weeks I choose the topic and the other half they as a class get to choose. Every Monday or Tuesday we choose the topic and then I let them have until Wed/Thurs night to finish it. While in class on Wednesday or Thursday I will be available for them to answer questions about the topic or their writing practices. I would have a midterm sit-down with each student of mine and ask where they feel they need to improve upon and then give them my opinion also. During our writings in the second part of the semester the goal is for the students to improve upon those week points of theirs and have them leaving my class with confidence knowing they could change something they thought they couldnt fix. I would also have the students complete one research or inquiry project. This inquiry project will be done in groups of four to five people because; in the real world you are going to have to collaborate with others to be successful. This will benefit the students as they go into the higher undergraduate years of school, or even graduate school. By my way of teaching, my students will become more educated of the people and the world around them while enhancing their writing abilities to increase their marketability in

getting a job in the near future. My grading would be determined by effort, knowledge of the subject, basic structure and grammar, creativity and completion. This would be a stress free but positive course for students to take, as I know there are other hectic courses they are taking. However, writing is something they will do for the rest of their lives and I want to make a positive impact by improving each one of them as a writer and person.

c.

During our time in this class my classmates and I have had the opportunity to read a

variety of articles, book passages, videos, podcasts, etc. to enhance our awareness that writing is found everywhere and can be found in different forms. The topics have ranged from the school system today, to the media and technologys impact on society today. I was definitely not expecting to learn about real life situations and pointing out social and political problems while in a writing class. I am however grateful that we did as I have become an even more educated student from this class. The one reading that interested me the most was by a man named Lars Eighner who became homeless for three years in the late 1980s and early 1990s due to unfortunate circumstances and happenings from his actions and lifestyle. He kept a journal along his side to document his experiences that he had during his travels and times of adversity. The sections of his book that we read for class was about dumpster diving. I like how he is extremely detailed recounting the lessons that he had come to learn about dumpster diving. He would ask questions like, why did people throw this away and when is the best time to go diving at certain places? He gives his audience a great background on basically what goes through the mind of a person in poverty and their efforts to see another day for an opportunity to arise. Eighner had his Labrador retriever named Lizbeth along side him during his journey, so not only did he have to care for himself but basically his kid. Out of all the materials we have read this semester, this is one story I believe that I could have gone on to read for hours. I would have liked to see what was next for him and Lizbeth. I hope that there was a happy ending for them, as everybody deserves a second chance.

d.

This English 1102 class has given me the opportunity to improve upon my skills that I

learned from my 1101 class last semester, and the other lessons that I have been taught from elementary to high school. Coming into college as I said in the first question, my writing skills were ridiculed commonly but there were some positives every now and then. The worst part about my writing were my bad habits, such as run-on sentences, misplaced commas, repeated words, etc. My goal coming into ENGL 1101 and 1102 were to rid myself of these issues that way I become a consistently decent writer with few mistakes. I however did not expect as many complements about my writing as I have collected from my freshman year of college. I pride myself in structure and having many ideas for my papers. Those are two components that my professor and my fellow peers say that I do well at. There are however a few more skills that I need to polish over the course of time to better my writing. My professor I need to work on becoming more clear and concise when it comes to writing/typing my ideas. She said that I occasionally become extremely wordy and I may lose the attention of my audience by confusing them. I just need to make a/my point in a shorter and sweeter context. She did compliment me on my explanation of ideas/thoughts and my overall content, which was something that my previous writing professor wanted me to work on. Overall my experience in this writing class has been nothing short of magnificent as I have gained a significant amount of confidence and have built my character when it comes to writing papers in the future. I will forever be indebt to the two professors who have taught me the last couple of semesters. The style of how I organize or bring my thoughts together about a paper have not changed that much over the course of time. I always like to brainstorm, and as soon as I get an idea, I have to find a piece of paper or something to write on as I have a bad case of short-term

memory. For my inquiry project/paper I had a pretty good idea on how I wanted to set it up. My overall goal besides being detailed is to make sure my structure is not disorganized, as I do not want to confuse my audience. I like to think of myself as a storyteller but I do not want to take too many dramatic turns to leave my audience clueless. Another complication I try to stay away from is reiterating my ideas. I had a problem in high school of repeating some of the same things over and over again without realizing it. The way I structured my inquiry paper was to inform about what anabolic steroids on Human Growth Hormones are and then get into the history of the usage of these drugs in sports. From there I went on to talk about solutions to solve this epidemic and what kind of effort it is going to take as sports are a momentous part of a lot of peoples lives, including mine, so occasionally I would add a comment or two on my opinions and ideas. I plan to keep on using my style of writing a paper(s), but if something needs to be fixed or if a person knows a way to better my paper, then I am all for it.

e.

My English/Writing 1102 class does have quite a story. We have a variety of student

personalities, opinions, backgrounds, etc. but we all unite to learn as one. For an hour and fifteen minutes, two days a week, we have been our own little family for the last four and a half months. We all came together in January, refreshed from a nice break after our first ever semester of college. A lot of my fellow students felt like time flew by, but for me I couldnt believe it was only January. Our professor introduced herself and gave the class the usual class summarization on the first day we attended. Honestly all that was on my mind that day was the upcoming Carolina Panther playoff game as they were having a tremendous season. They however lost the game and now it was time for me to focus primarily on my academics. This semester I have felt that time has flown by. It feels like it was just yesterday when my classmates and I were building our story-telling skills through our conflict narrative/analysis project. Through this project I learned that I need to work on my transitions between paragraphs and that I need to be more detailed when I write down my ideas as I was leaving important information out of the context. The last part I needed to work on was my organization. I had the write information written down, however some of the paragraph did not match with the material around it. This project was interesting as I talked about my process of attending college after just one semester of experience. The inquiry project was the one assignment I was not looking forward to. I had to complete one for my intro to business class first semester and I dreaded it, even though I made an A on the paper. An inquiry project is similar to a research paper, however I learned that you are allowed to write down your own opinions on things within these papers. This relieved me of a lot of stress as researching for many hours can bore you to death and lose the interest of the student, which may result in him or her getting a bad grade. Since I could write my own opinion

about information, then I knew I had to do a conflict that related with sports. Since I have been alive cheating and performance-enhancing drug use has been a prominent problem within the sporting industry around the world. I had some previous knowledge behind this epidemic and I was able to write down the flaws and my solutions with relative ease, along with the help of my professor and fellow classmates. Through this project I learned that again, I need to work on being more clear and concise with my material. I had the right ideas but occasionally I would become extremely wordy and that would confuse my audience. To fix this I need to just summarize my information and make sure that it still gets my point across. I had a couple of punctuation errors that needed to be fixed and it was good to know the rules behind citations again as I will have many research papers to come within the next few years of my higher education. The last project, the Multigenre project, involved my classmates and I to become creative as we thought of ways to solve our problems/conflict(s) from our inquiry papers. Critical thinking was a skill everybody had to use based on how we thought our audience was going to interpret our solutions. How will people notice it? What are some of the negatives of this solution? These are some of the questions that I kept asking myself throughout my thought process. There are many different genres tout their in the world that people use to get their point across about a subject or a conflict that relates to them. I did not realize the broad spectrum and the amount of genres that are available until these past two semesters in my writing classes. I will hopefully be working in the sports business/field one day and I will always need new ideas whether it is for branding or advertising. This was a fun and great assignment to finish the class with.

We had many daybook and blog posts to complete during our semester. They helped us students tremendously when it came down to thinking of ideas for our projects and how we could be successful when writing them. This class has been an overall benefit for me and I hope my other fellow students say the same. I came into college hating to write, even though I am ready for a break, but now I leave full of confidence and pride in my work ready for any challenge that is thrown at me.

f.

There are quite a few lessons and skills that I have learned from my writing classes that I

can take into usage for other classes of mine the next three to four years of my higher education. I have learned to become more detailed and to summarize components at the right time. These are a couple of the components that I have been working on for my papers all semester long. I have learned about the variety of genres that are available for me to use and which audiences are appropriate for them. My major that I plan on taking is Business Management, so I will be cooperating with many people and I will need to be creative when it comes to communicating with different types of personalities. Also, when it comes to work, I will have to create reports, presentations, write letters etc. which all have different types of speech and structures that I will have to take into account. Lastly I have learned to be confident and not afraid to ask questions, as I want to be the very best that I can be. To do that, I need to believe in myself and not let my limitations hold me back. I also ask for a helping hand every once in awhile as you cannot do everything by yourself in this competitive and challenging world we live in.

g.

My freshman college experience has been more than I could have ever imagined. I was a

nervous wreck on August 16th, 2013, although I was ready to move out. There were quite a few aspects of my life that I however was going to miss. My Moms home cooked meals, my towns local diners, my friends still in high school, etc., but it was time for me to make the next important step in my life. Now moving on as a sophomore, I think of my self as a quarterback and my teammates are my buddies, fellow classmates, and the staff here at UNC Charlotte. For a quarterback to be successful, he must have a special bond with his teammates and coaches, as one another will make each other better. If the entire team buys into this motto, you are going to have something very special. I feel like that is a part of the UNC Charlotte experience. My professors and other staff members have been as good as could be by their teachings and their availability to assist me. From the Chick-Fila clerks down to my counselor, they have made my experience worthwhile. I have made friendships here at Charlotte that will last a lifetime. They bring me happiness and motivation to strive to be great, along with my family and my lord of savoir Jesus Christ. Lastly a quarterback has to be a leader on and off the field. I have been working tenacious hours each and every day to improve myself as a person and a student. This summer is going to be my offseason, but I plan on coming back in August a refreshed and jubilant Nicholas Hunt, ready to face all the adversities that will come my way. I came to UNC Charlotte an average joe but I want to leave my mark once I leave here and beyond. Perhaps the Hall of Fame or a building being named after me is in the near future?

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