Samantha Medina 

ENGL 110

Professor Sunny Talero 

Engl 110 was my favorite class this semester. I genuinely feel like the content was extremely interesting. I enjoyed the texts we read and analyzed and also the way the class made me grow and  personally made my writing progress a little over the semester. I think it progressed in a way where I can write about myself personally and my thoughts on topics because of the essay assignments throughout the semester and the encouragement of making my essays more personal. Because of that result, I’ve also started to write in my phone notes app about my personal life and how I feel emotionally when I’m in a certain situation that upsets me and makes me sad or frustrated. Throughout the semester I also feel like I progressed in creating an english portfolio and creating a website without struggling because I’m not too expanded with technology so I feel like now I can use that to create more websites in the future without struggling. 

Throughout the essay assignments in the class, I’ve been encouraged to be more personal and to really input my personal thoughts about what I’m writing about, especially given the fact that I am the one that’s writing the essay. In the first essay which was the L+L Narrative, it really did push me to be more personal with my writing, and I remember a google classroom comment about how possibly I couldn’t open up in my essay because of the things I’ve been through which has caused me to have trouble opening up about getting sexualized for what I’ve been through, and when I read that I did have a “Damn why did my teacher just read my mind” kind of moment and I agreed with the comment and tried to apply it to my work ever since then. In my L+L narrative, I discussed the sexualization and dismissing of women’s mental health in media and how it impacted me and others, in one part of the essay I wrote,” But even when I have told them that certain things trigger me, they don’t listen and still brushed me aside when I would have mental breakdowns or panic attacks due to them not listening to my mental health and certain needs I have. This makes me think that maybe it’s because they see the same things in the media but they don’t see how it impacts the woman, so they think it’s fine what they’re doing and how they’re acting. Since they have bad examples of caring for a woman’s mental health after they’ve had past trauma, it’ll reflect on how they treat women and impact women’s mental health more and could possibly traumatize them more.”. When I discussed my personal experience I felt more comfortable to apply that to my other essays when it comes to this class and also another essay from another class. I didn’t feel like I was oversharing or like I was going to be judged because I felt like I did choose a serious topic and shared serious experiences and wasn’t judged and because of that it made me feel more comfortable writing about my personal experiences and my emotions in school and out of school.

In another essay that I really felt more comfortable to apply my personal thoughts was the Researched Essay. In that essay I discussed how LGBTQ+ history should be taught more and appreciated more, I had discussed why I think that and how people can be educated. In the essay I wrote, “This topic is interesting and important to me because I think that LGBTQ+ history should be taken more seriously and acknowledged more since a lot of people use their language yet don’t know the history. I feel like people should be educated by watching documentaries like “Paris is Burning” and shows like “Pose”, because those shows and movies are educational when it comes to ballroom culture. I feel like it should also be included in more shows and possibly books and taught in classrooms to spread more awareness and know the history behind it.”. Because I had started to feel more comfortable in applying my personal thoughts, it was easier to give specific reasons to be educated in LGBTQ+ history and was allowed to be a little bit biased. It also allowed me to talk about things that are a part of my life and something that I find very interesting and also am passionate about, which is being in the LGBTQ+ community and the community itself.

I also feel like I learned a lot from the Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) that the class had discussed and learned throughout the semester. The first CLO is identifying how people are oppressed in the English language. I personally really enjoyed this course a lot because it did tie into my research essay when I touched on the argument of LGBTQ+ language and how it should be taken seriously. I thought this course was extremely interesting and it did make me reflect on how I speak around friends and close family, and how some people won’t consider it the English language because it’s not the white complexed philosophical language. Another part of that course that I really enjoyed learning was reading “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You” by June Jordan. I found this really interesting because I liked the part of when June Jordan had her class write in Black english, and to me that proved my point on the fact that english is so diverse and it isn’t just “white philosophical english”, and other forms of english language and english speaking should be taken seriously. The second CLO is exploring and analyzing in writing and reading, and a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. This course I personally don’t remember that well, but I did remember reading texts and articles and analyzing them and it really did teach me how broad language really can be. The class was assigned to read Mother Tongue by Amy Tan, and we had to analyze the text. I thought the text was really interesting because it taught me that it can be very hard to learn the standard textbook white English, for people that are American born and also others that have immigrated. Learning English can genuinely be hard to learn for others because it is a whole entire language and certain spelling and pronunciation, and there is pressure because of the high standards a lot of schools have when it comes to the English language. The third CLO is developing strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing. I think this course did help me with my revising strategies because I feel like I can take advice about my work pretty well and I can fix things quickly when they’re pointed out because there’s some things I don’t notice that could be taken away from my writing or even added and make it better. In my research essay I was given the suggestion on how people can learn more about LGBTQ+ history, and I added more to the essay by adding shows and movies to watch that are very educational and realistic. The fourth CLO is recognizing and practicing key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations. I don’t really remember specific writing assignments that I can apply to this but I did think about certain Jamboard activities when I heard “writing situations”, and I did enjoy doing the Jamboard activities because I personally found it really creative and still teach us something but in a fun way. Lastly the fifth CLO which is understanding and using print and digital technologies to address a range of audience. The first thing I immediately thought of was the portfolio website. I’ve never had fun or enjoyed making websites in school but this method of creating a website that holds the major assignments was extremely easy and I loved the fact that it is very customizable and easy to edit and move things around to my liking. 

When it comes to handing in work and meeting requirements I think I did pretty well, some assignments that weren’t the major essays I did turn in a little later but only by a day or two, but I should’ve pushed myself to hand it in on time, I just need to work on not procrastinating or having a lot of distractions. 

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this class and I feel like I did learn very important things when it came to writing and really making writing my own, and also letting me create websites easier and advancing me a bit in technology. I grew a bit as a writer when it came to opening up and writing about my personal opinions, thoughts, and experiences. I also learned a lot from the Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) and the assignments that I applied to those courses. I genuinely enjoyed the class and will use the strategies I learned for future writing assignments, classes, and in my personal life.