Reflection

During my first semester of college, I definitely thought that all of my classes were so unnecessary and weird because most of them were. And then I was wondering why we have to take literally THREE English courses? Isn’t one enough? But anyway, I underestimated what this class would do for me by far. Although I did find it tedious and annoying at times, what else should I have expected from an English class. Although the assignments were definitely very unique compared to what usually is given to students. I’ve never had to make pod casts before so this was a first for me, and the types of projects we did such as the community research one was actually enjoyable as well. It was not only beneficial to my grade but also for me personally since I want to join. Writing a personal narrative was also a first for me, so that was really interesting to do as well.

         When the personal narrative was first mentioned, I really had no idea where to even begin. But I eventually pulled through. I learned a lot about writing a personal narrative and how it compares to writing an essay. For example, when I was writing and I made my first complete draft, I was reading over and I thought that it was just about perfect. But when we had the conferences (which I also really enjoyed the face to face feedback) I learned that it was definitely wasn’t, but it was still okay. In personal narratives, you don’t have to explain things like you do in an essay. My narrative was about my performances in theatre during high school, and when I would describe a very heartfelt scene I would literally explain how and why I was making a deep bond with a friend of mine during the acting. In a Personal narrative, you don’t need to explain. The scene itself is already heartfelt, so readers would know but basically context clues and the social interaction from the characters that it’s all enough evidence alone to pick up on the deep friendships between everyone in the scene. But other than that, personal narratives are almost like a story. You basically write like how a book would, because in fact, you really are telling a story when it comes down to it.

         Next was project two, and oh man that one was a shocker when it was first mentioned. Not only do we have to write a 3000-word essay (which was the longest essay I had ever had to write) but we have to go out, find a community, visit them, and then interview people in it? It was definitely intimidating, but once I got started it wasn’t as bad as thought it would be. In fact, it was definitely way more beneficial to me than I ever thought it could be. First, I had to pick the community and I was confused. How was I going to find a community worth researching that I would actually be interested in? Then I thought of the Choral Union and I was all set. I did and still do want to join them, so it was perfect. I learned so much from this project. Not only did I just learn how to write better, but I also learned a lot about interaction with people. My project in particular focused on the relationships between everyone in the choir, so I was observing how they acted around each other the entire time, how that benefited the entire choir as a whole, and how it affected their performance. But I also learned a lot about interviewing since I had to interview people. It helped me prepare for my own interviews in the future, in a way. But overall, I enjoyed doing the project, but the essay part was so long. I feel like it could be 2500 instead of 3000.

         Lastly, we have project three. I enjoyed doing this one the most but mostly because I had to fix up my Wix website too since I hated it at first and thought it wasn’t organized at all (which it wasn’t.) The first thing I did was record the podcast, which I enjoyed doing. I thought that podcasts were a great idea for a class like this, very creative. I also had fun making a twitter page for my community and getting to design a flyer. I’m very artsy myself so getting to create things like so is entertaining to me. I also enjoyed how short the project was when you finish. I hate when the last final of a class is literally insane in expectation of the student and in length of the actual project itself. But overall, project three was probably the most enjoyable.

         Now that the semester is coming to an end, I realized that this this class has taught me a lot more than I thought it did. At first, I thought this was class was super annoying but after writing this reflection I’m now appreciating it way more. I thought that all three projects were necessary to the class, and I enjoyed how they all linked together at the end.