Final Reflection

David Stein 

Mat Wenzel 

ENC 2135

31 July 2019 

Final Reflection 

Going into ENC 2135, I thought it was going to be like every other English class I had previously taken. The class turned out to be quite the contrary. From choosing my own story to getting involved in a community on campus, it was a lot more interactive that my English courses in high school. It gave me the chance to essentially personalize the way I wrote while gaining a better understanding on research and genres.

Each day, the class would start with a flashcard and a question. This acted as our attendance but also was extremely helpful in terms of gaining knowledge on what had to be done in class for that day. These flashcards also helped break the ice in class during the first week of class when everyone was getting to know each other. Within the class, we were also broken into smaller groups of about five. This proved to be extremely helpful in the long run; whenever I had a question I would simply text the group and receive a collective answer. 

Starting off the projects, I had to write a personal narrative; this was difficult because I never had to compose an assignment quite like this. To start, I needed to take the stories I described and actually discuss the events that took place through conversations with the kids; this meant the inclusion of dialogue. I would also need to lower the events covered to create a more in depth story. Trying to convey too much in the story would become overwhelming. In addition to that, I had to narrow down specific events and go into detail about what transpired. In doing this I would be creating a much better personal narrative.  I wrote my first draft in a way that was too similar to an essay. It was a top tier essay however not a great personal narrative. The story was present in the work but I needed to add more important, specific details. Instead of saying something occurred, which I did in my first draft, I added dialogue that gave the reader a much more in depth look at what actually happened. My final draft embodied all of these corrections. I did more research on what a personal narrative actually was as compared to a traditional essay. What I learned was that a personal narrative is more of an actual account as opposed to an essay which is almost like an outsider looking in. Overall, this project was a complete learning experience and taught me the importance of detail and personal accounts.

Following project one came the biggest and baddest project yet: the inquiry project. This project was overwhelming at first and seemed to be crammed into the end of the summer semester. However, as I began to chip away, it became interesting which made for an easier write. The interview was probably when I learned the most about the community that I selected. It gave me a credible source who had actually been in the community for four years. This was all his opinion as well; this gave me helpful pointers about the CSU that I had previously not known. Finding the sources also aiding in developing my ideas on what to discuss within project two. The sources gave me a plethora of information to choose from on topics that were way beyond my prior understanding. Writing the paper was a little tricky. The hardest part was deciding on what genre to include while still making it relevant to the topic of the paper. Eventually, I completed the project; it was pretty stressful and took me a few days to write. Regardless, it all came together nicely and I meshed all material that I had collected over the course of project two. 

Lastly, there was the campaign. It was mostly an account of what I had worked on over the class, the inquiry project in general. I enjoyed making the podcast and placing myself in the position of an actual host. I created two different social media platforms for my community: twitter and instagram. They are both different platforms for promotion. The campaign was by far the easiest project and the most defined. 

In its entirety, this class taught me how to properly write a personal narrative. This includes discussing dialogue; actual detailed events that occured as opposed to giving a vague description. This ended up being my favorite project that I did over the course of this class. Changing my writing style from an essay to a narrative had its challenges but I was able to transition and produce a pretty good piece of literature. The inquiry project was not exactly my favorite part of the class and it was tedious, but I would say that I learned the most from this. Regardless, both of these projects were fun because I was able to write about what I wanted to.