IV. Reflection in English 121

There was a lot of pressure to continue my success in the topic in college as well. With that pressure came great disappointment after my definitional essay was returned to me with the letter B. This is only one example of how college has challenged me far beyond high school. In order to view descriptions of my assignments and to link to the finished products navigate to the English course page under the "Courses" heading. My first college assignment was very intimidating, which is why my instructor's decision to give a graded but not weighted assignment was greeted with my personal sighs of relief. I had no idea how much higher the bar was in college, or if I could reach that bar with even my greatest leap. It felt like more than simply a new level; it felt like I had suddenly jumped into a brand new league, a league where past standing meant nothing. It also meant starting over with a new instructor whose preferences for style and organization were completely unknown to me.

My initial problem with writing this assignment was simply the topic. What memory in my life was important enough to become a part of the present momentous moment? Eventually, that problem was solved when I forced myself to think of the first memory that seemed truly significant to my intellectual growth. It beam abundantly clear that the appropriate moment for my paper would be when I truly started thinking for myself despite obvious contradictions with what my mother had always taught me. A new problem arrived to replace the old when my teacher informed me we were to incorporate a visual element to liven up our papers. I thought back to senior year, when I read my friend's research paper on Oscar Wilde. In her paper, she split her piece with headers that were each assigned their own subject. This seemed to greatly contribute to the smooth flow of her paper and helped to connect every piece of her writing to the larger picture. Since the visual element worked so well for her, I decided it could work for me as well and proceeded to divide my paper into smaller subject headings.

I was fairly satisfied with my finished paper and didn't think I would go back and change much of what resulted from my work. I would, however, change my presentation of the paper because I was not well enough prepared. I should have practiced the speech more so that I did not end up making my introduction a third of the speech, which caused me to have to compress the true point of the speech and the paper into one sentence.