Sean+Smith+Course+Evaluation

Course Evaluation and Reflection This semester in English 1010 has been extremely beneficial. As we continued through the year, I was given lessons that will not only assist me in my current high school schedule, but also prepare me for future college classes. This class taught me to deeply analyze new next, proper grammar structure in order to write and revise my own work, and to organize creative thoughts onto my paper with ease. It is these lessons that I will take and improve upon throughout my life.

The articles we mostly read were explanatory. Expository prose, as we have learned, is clear, concise writing without qualifiers. As we continued through the year we have read many types of expository prose that has taught us to analyze readings more efficiently. Reading such stories as, “Bozo Revisited,” was not only entertaining, but also helpful in my writing structure and theme development. However, I did read the occasional difficult writing, such as Vonnegut’s “How to Write with Style.” I found myself having to read the article twice or even three times to fully comprehend the authors meaning. I also wrote a list of different compositions. I individually wrote a personal narrative, a descriptive essay, a comparison and contrast essay, a research paper, and a classification essay. This year has been busy. Creating all of these essays was a challenge. As I struggled to come up with new and interesting ideas, elaboration seemed impossible. I felt accomplished after every new assignment.

Learning how to write is easy, but learning to write correctly is quite difficult. Throughout the year I have been improving my writing through lessons in grammar, usage, and punctuation. We began by learning sentence variety, and continued into the comma splice, subject verb agreement and pronoun antecedent agreement, and introducing quoted material. With these lessons and peer editing throughout the year I have learned to improve my writing structure significantly. I know for sure I will have fewer comma splices and less vague pronouns than before.

This year my favorite reading was, “Love, Internet Style,” by David Brooks. His explanation on how dating has evolved and grown, yet has the same general structure, was interesting. I was intrigued by his statement “many people are better at revealing their true selves through the keyboard than through conversation.” My favorite writing was the classification essay. Since my favorite television show is Seinfeld, I felt I could imitate their over analysis of a certain topic. I found myself being able to connect with the piece and that it was easy to write. My biggest challenge was the research paper. Finding sources with legitimate information seemed impossible. I had a hard time elaborating on the information that was given, and don’t believe I picked a topic that truly interested me. Overall, most of our readings and writings were interesting, and if not interesting, beneficial. However, the “How to Fail a Test” PowerPoint wasn’t beneficial or interesting to me personally. Teachers in high school drill this information into my head and it has become overly repetitive now.

English 1010 with Mrs. Lowry have been not only helpful, but pleasurable. The lab area with classmates I can connect to have been extremely beneficial. I believe English 1010 has been a big step in improving my literary abilities from past years. I will take the lessons I have accumulated and integrate them into future studies and papers. I simply hope all of you have gained as much as I have from this class.