Reflection Essay

Before Professor Collins English 1302 class, I knew a lot about communicating through
academic writing. I had a teacher my senior year in high school named Mrs. Galvan that made
the research paper process of that year a highly in-depth one that ingrained the concepts of
academic writing deep into my brain. I have always enjoyed writing and when I took
Composition I at Pensacola State College I was the only one in the class with an A. Although I
knew a great amount already on how to communicate through academic writing, I improved my
abilities in this class greatly by using aspects such as peer reviews, Reader Responses, and
analysis.
Peer reviews helped me improve my writing skills because the tips given by other
students in the class helped me go back and realize some mistakes I had been making. The peer
review from essay one had a note that told me I should change the sentence structure in body
paragraphs two and three because they were the same which caused me to completely rewrite the
intro of paragraph three of my essay one. This helped me improve my ability to use varied
sentence structures throughout my essays. The causal argument essay peer review also had some
helpful tips, including one that suggested that I elaborate a little more on paragraph two and the
argument I was making and this in turn helped me realize that all of my statements need to be
backed up by evidence from sources and my essay twos second paragraph was edited.
Reader Responses also served a purpose in me gaining communicative skills in my
writing by helping me focus on my topic for the essay and really delve into the purpose of my
paper and make an outline of it early. An example of this is found in Reader Response four that
asked students to pick a problem for their proposal essay and explain what they already know
about it and possible solutions. This helped me really center on my issue and find the best
possible solution. My brainstorming and organization skills were improved by this Reader
Response, and my proposal essay was better because of it as well.

I also learned from using the aspect of analysis in Mrs. Collins class. In the class when
pathos, logos, and ethos were being learned, a speech by Julian Castro was analyzed to recognize
where he had used these appeals to better communicate and connect to his audience. A song
called Four Five Seconds was also scrutinized for these such appeals and others such as
alliteration, similes, and repetition. This analysis helped me analyze my own work for ways I can
add these appeals to better communicate with and persuade my readers. There was also an essay
assigned that included choosing a speech and describing what appeals the speaker used which
also greatly increased my level of skill in connecting with the reader. I used a speech by Elie
Wiesel and the essay described the amount of ethos and repetitive use of rhetorical questions
Wiesel used to get his point across in The Perils of Indifference.
I feel very confident in my ability to communicate to my readers through academic
writing after English 1302. If I could go back and retake the class I would have realized the
impact of the appeals in my academic writing sooner so that my essays could have been greatly
improved. This class was very helpful and Mrs. Collins helped explain everything step by step so
that it was difficult to ever fall behind.