Project Three

Lauryn Volner 

English 1302 

Professor Hammet 

Reflective Essay 

3 April 2024  

Word Count: 512 

Reflective Essay  

When I first started this Composition class, I was excited to improve my writing skills. I have always loved to write but I've never written about any of the subjects that I’ve learned about throughout this class. Learning more about binge drinking and absurd authors was the most interesting part of this course. I have learned many skills to help my writing at a college level and I’m excited to continue my college education.  

Throughout this course, I have learned many ways to write papers and make helpful outlines. I learned more about analyzing texts, finding credible sources, and building academic arguments. I struggled at first with finding sources and using the PEE format to outline each paper. However, this struggle shaped me into a better writer. As well as, more uniform and consistent with each paper. I enjoyed reading and analyzing texts that were tougher to understand. Most of the readings involved in this course had underlying meanings, like Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. I also enjoyed watching movies based on these writings. For example, The Birds, originally written by Du Maurier, and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, was very interesting and cinematically spectacular. These texts and films made the class unique and very enjoyable to learn and write about. 

I was a very average writer before this course, and I wasn’t very good at outlining papers. Starting this course as a senior in high school, I had very little knowledge of finding credible sources and analyzing text at a college level. This class helped me grow into a better writer and prepared me for other courses. Many skills of mine have grown. Including, analyzing and recognizing sources. Before this course, I had only used scholarly sources a few times before. I’m happy to say that I feel like a writer of higher quality.  

Multiple writings throughout the course have helped me grow as a student and writer. I enjoyed learning about binge drinking; I have never read any articles or sources about the epidemic before. I had to come up with suitable solutions and back the solutions up with scholarly sources throughout this specific paper. I was challenged because of this but I was very happy with the outcome. My second paper was a rhetorical analysis based on how an absurd author would feel about a certain social epidemic. I decided to write about Franz Kafka. This paper was the hardest one for me to complete. A lot of work went into it. I enjoyed learning about Kafka’s childhood and writings. He was a very interesting author. These papers helped boost my skills the most because of the underlying work that went into writing them.  

My thoughts on this course are that it is constructive and helpful. Especially for it being an online course. I learned a great deal about writing in general and I feel very prepared for any other courses that involve writing papers and analyzing texts. This course is one of my favorite classes I have taken and I’m happy to have had a helpful professor throughout the class.