Reflection Essay

[Name of the Writer]

[Name of Instructor]

[Subject]

[Date]

Reflection Essay

Introduction

Learning is a process that goes on throughout the life of a person. An individual is never too old to learn and apply new knowledge in various fields of life. The art of learning and analyzing helps a person significantly in understanding the various scenarios of life and making logical and rational decisions in every tough situation of life.

The skill of learning gains much more importance in the life of a student, where learning is an essential part and process for understanding and retaining concepts. It is the ultimate aim of every student’s life to learn and progress. Every time he or she starts a new degree, a new semester, a new class, they start it with a hope that they will leave the process with something useful and much beneficial.

Discussion

I also started my semester with the hope of exiting it with good grades, the most important thing that mattered for me the most was the level of understanding and learning. As a student, my ultimate goals was also to not only learn something new but also to bring an improvement in my already present knowledge and skills.

My majors are in English Literature so my special interest has always been in the subjects related to the same area as English literature, English Grammar, English Composition, etc. I have always been interested in improving my skills related to every aspect of English whether it be reading, writing, composing paragraphs, essays or speaking. My subject requires a great deal of analysis and critical thinking and after reading various texts and then writing about them. The course requires various sorts of critical and reflective writing.

To improve my above-mentioned skills, I went through multiple pieces of writings, including essays, novels, short stories, poems, and even research papers. Articles of various nature assisted my lot in this respect, especially articles of critical and reflective nature. My instructor also helped me a lot in this respect watching my passion and interest in the subject. He also recommended various articles which could assist me in the improvement of my skills.

I came to know that to be a good analyzer and writer, a person needs to be a good reader first. Only good reading skills can help in properly analyzing and then reflecting upon the subject. For the purpose of improving my reading skills, my teacher recommended me an article “Sponsors of literacy”, penned down by Mrs. Deborah Brandt. The article enlightened me that there are various aspects that affect the reading capability of an individual. Mrs. Brandt refers to various institutes that affect our reading processes as “Sponsors”, that allow us to become literate. These are the institutes like any ideas, concepts and even people, who entitle any other person to read and increase their share of knowledge. This trend became more common after World War II when people started realizing the importance of literacy, especially reading and started bringing improvements in this skill by using these institutions (Century).

The second most important aspect that I learned in this course was research. Research is a very important factor when an individual is going to write about anything. It would not be wrong if said that research acts as a backbone to the whole process of reading and writing. The importance of research became more clear to me when my teacher recommended me the article “Cupping the Spark in Our Hands: Developing a Better Understanding of the Research Question in Inquiry-Based Writing”, written by Bernice Olivas. The author clarifies many aspects of writing, especially research writing in his article (Olivas). He intricately explains the process of writing while keeping the basics of research in mind. Olivas encourages the writers especially students and new writers to process their thoughts and write with purpose. He expects the writers to raise questions and progress their inquiry based-writing.

Another most important aspect that I learned in this course is effective writing. I learned significantly how to write the most effective piece of writing that is useful and informative at the same time. The art of writing stems out from reading as careful and skillful reading gives rise to a most elaborate and intricate piece of writing. A well-written and comprehensive piece of writing is a result of great and well-directed research. An article penned down by Ann M. Penrose and Cheryl Geisler helped me greatly in understanding the concepts of effective reading and then putting the analysis in the form of words on paper (Penrose). The article was titled "Reading and Writing without Authority" and excellently elaborated the concept of reading and writing. It explained that how people at different academic and age levels perceive things and then put it in writing.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, it can conclude that this course has helped me significantly in improving my reading, writing, listening and interpreting skills especially related to English subject. I am now better able to understand and interpret any text, related to the English subject, specifically English Literature. My teachers and peers have also noticed an improvement in my overall performance and regard this as an exceptional achievement. They comment that I have improved incredibly in the areas of interpretive writing and critically analyzing the texts. I still see myself as continuous learner and want to improve my skills more. In my opinion, I still have to learn a lot and bring betterment in my capabilities so that I can become an excellent critique and writer.

Works Cited

Century, Twentieth. "Deborah Brandt Sponsors of Literacy." College Composition and Communication 49.2 (1998): 165-185.

Olivas, Bernice. "Cupping the Spark in Our Hands: Developing a Better Understanding of the Research Question in Inquiry-Based Writing." Young Scholars In Writing 7 (2010): 6-18.

Penrose, Ann M., and Cheryl Geisler. "Reading and writing without authority." College Composition and Communication45.4 (1994): 505-520.