Aiden Duncan
ENGL 1213
Beth Hammet
Reflection Essay
5/4/2024
Reflection Essay
I started this course at the beginning of the spring semester during my Junior year of high school. This semester was one of my worst performances, especially in contrast with the fall semester when I took Composition I. This is partially due to the difference in expectation, but largely to do with my own shortcomings. While this semester was rough, there are some things I learned from this experience. One of my most memorable learning moments was me receiving back my Project 1 Essay.
Throughout my schooling career I typically only scored low on work that I did not turn in. Project 1 was definitely an exception; I scored seventy percent. In my estimation there are two reasons for my low score. The first is that my essay lacked proper formatting and grammar which lost me many points. This was because I did my essay all in one day and did not take my time to comb back through my essay in order to check for potential mistakes. The second reason is that I value information over neatness and often clarity. This is quite noticeable in my essay given the many block quotes but also my thesis statement. In response to my thesis statement my professor said “I'm confused--is the topic loneliness or political polarization that causes loneliness? Fix the thesis so this is clear to readers. Then, reiterate that in the topic sentence for para 1 so readers are clear on it.” This confusion was created due to me positing my own theory on why this issue of loneliness has accelerated in recent years. I did this chiefly because I have come to the conclusion that political polarization was causing more loneliness and figured that the reader may be curious. I now understand that this was out of place causing the reader confusion and making it appear as if I have two thesis statements. Another thing I learned from this essay was to check the attachment before submitting the assignment. This is because I lost points on my essay due to an improperly formatted works cited page. Before I downloaded the Google Doc to my computer I reviewed my works cited page to check for any errors; upon checking, I did not notice any errors. This is because there were none. However, when I downloaded the Doc it became misformatted in some places. This issue could have been avoided by checking the attachment before submitting the assignment.
Project 1 was a punch to the gut, but Project 2 was a beat-down. This is not because Project 2 was necessarily more difficult, but rather because I made it more difficult by procrastinating to the very last minute. The night before it was due I stayed up until around three a.m. trying to finish this essay. Just like Project 1 this led to my professor, and later a more awake self, noting “major issues” with the essay. The main one being that it lacked proper quotes and citations to prove my points. This essay was supposed to be a rhetorical analysis aimed (in my case) saying that absurdist writer Franz Kafka would agree that loneliness was a social epidemic and say that was due to oppressive work culture. However this point fell flat due to the lack of evidence to support it.
If I were to set a goal for myself in the future to help me improve my writing it would be to become a better student. If you noticed one theme throughout this essay I would hope it would be the dangers of procrastination. My tendency towards laziness led to me creating numerous grammar mistakes, many confusing sentences, and a rhetorical analysis essay where I had hardly any quotes to show my analysis.
Even with my poor performance I did enjoy this course. I enjoyed the focus on absurdism that led me to be able to watch an Alfred Hitchcock film for an assignment; however, what I think I enjoyed most was the forgiveness of the professor. Even though this is not stated in the syllabus the professor gave me the opportunity to submit a late essay while still providing the possibility of getting one hundred percent and is still giving me the same opportunity with only a week left in the semester. Overall, I would say I learned a lot both about the coursework as well as about how to become a better student by recognizing my weaknesses.
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