self assessment

Mary Anne Lopez

Gwendolyn Alley

 English V02A

May 9, 2008

 

First of all, before I took this class I have a lot of anxiety. Being this class requires a lot of writing, reading, assignments and TIME. It required a lot of time and effort which I thought I could not do it because I do not own my time. I have two children to attend to and by saying that it says it all….Children. I contemplated wether or not to take the subject at all. On my firs day of class I met my teacher. My first impression was she may be a good teacher, approachable, and she has this smile that reminds me of one of my favorite actress “Renee Zellweger”.  So I thought, maybe this could be a good thing. An approachable teacher is a plus because it will be easier for a student like me who may have to ask a lot questions especially I haven’t been in school for a long time. So I tried one session to the next then before I knew it the class is almost over. My journey began in learning literature.

Since the class is almost over I could look back now and say I did it. I made it through. All my efforts, class participation and just merely being in class and learning the “pros and cons”of writing is beginning to pay off. The formal writing is what they call it. I learn to collect my thoughts, construct a sentence, a paragraph and put everything into writing with correct grammar, punctuation, period, and discover a new vocabulary. One thing that would stick the most is the “4 T’s” in making a thesis which is very helpful and will be in the future. The famous “4 T’s and the MLA” style of writing which is really useful in research projects as well. It taught me how to write the THESIS, think of a TOPIC, and giving my writing the ATTITUDE and TENSE and to TELEGRAPH the whole writing in which my audience and the writer can understand better. I believe that using this technique in writing made my writing a whole lot easier. It made me a better writer because in the consciouness of having this TIPS come in very handy.

Writing is one of my weakness yet writing in BLOGS serves as a good practice for me in writing. It gave me great opportunity to polish my writing, to convey my feelings, to reflect and to make comments, and able to get feedbacks as well. I learn how to revise and correct mistakes. I think I am better at it. I also learn how to make links, insert my favorite videos to share to the readers and slowly learning how to add image, audio and videos. Most of all critical thinking of all the reading we have done in class.

Reading literature is a very interesting subject. It became more interesting for me when I was actually putting it into action. Being in this class and learn literature it gave me a broader understanding and made me think critically. Asking questions while you read and anticipate the conclusion of the story I am reading. It is not merely just writing, it was a creative writing of my own imagination, poetry, drama and fiction or non fiction. I like the fact that you could just free write. I think literature represents language of people, its culture and traditions. It introduced me to a new world of experience. I learn about books and Literature. I enjoyed the comedy the tragedy of poem, the play and stories. I may even grow and evolved through our literary journey with our books.

I have grown more aware, knowledgeable of my environment during those time that we were preparing for the earth day and research on how we could take care of our environment. I applied my knowledge at home in which I could share with my children. At this time, as our share to our mother earth. We are religiously participating in “RECYLING” our trash at home with the most common materials like soda cans, bottles, plastic and paper. My son is so happy about it because in his own little way of showing that he learned a lot from it as well. He was able to contribute and gain from it by selling the recycled material and making money for him self and look at as his reward for helping not only in the house but in our community and to earth. I am most proud because I was able to share what I learned from school. I was able to teach my own children while they are young on how to love their environment which they will gain in return for their future. I changed tremendously on my outlook on recycle and littering. My attitude towards trash and recycling has changed. I see a piece of plastic or paper, I am more aware it’s like automatically I would have to pick it up because I know that our marine animals will be in danger by ingesting this materials. What I learn most is LOVE your environment because it gives us food, shelter and life.

I like the actual Earth day awareness. My classmates and I made a good team effort in putting our contribution together. From poster making , exchanging ideas, the passion and the enthusiasm  were overwhelming. Everyone were just pitching in. I love the fact that we were one when it comes to putting up thing together.

I have not done any service project but I guess you could say that my service is at home with my two children. I would like to acknowledge them from being so understanding that their mom has to go back to school in which a lot of times took away a lot of their mommy time. They have been so wonderful in this process. I have to explain to them why sometimes I had to take to my classes when there were no one to turn to take care of them. I also took them to the harbor on “beach clean up” day. We had fun in which now I realized we were able to spend time together and doing a good deed towards out mother nature. It gave me the chance to explain to them the importance of a clean environment.

I got to sit and listen to some of the famous writer and poet in this class. The likes of Al young, Laynie Brown, and Amalio Madueno.It was a great experience to actually listen to this people when they talk about their work. They have so much passion to what they do. It is very inspiring.

            In conclusion, It has been a great venture for me learning and I did learn a lot of things. I Believe deserve at least a B in this class. Because I know that I have put in all my best and I deserve it. I started this course with out any prior knowledge in writing at all. I never wrote in my whole life this way. I know my instructor would have to rectify my grades for that matter. I know she knows how much I have put in this class. I have missed 2-3 class days. I have participated from class room discussions, activity, projects, ads, book club, researches, Earth day, blogs, reading assignments and so on and so forth. Over all, I could not believe how much I have improved in my writing skills, from being a lousy writer to a better writer. I think, my writing has better quality, better understanding of the topic, the subject, and quantity from a 1-2 paragraph writer to 300-500 words paragraph and phrases. My class in English 2 has helped me improve tremendously with the quality and techniques of my writing. Using repetitive sentences to point out and emphasize the thought to my writing. The reasoning, consistency, compare, and contrast, the story telling of my own experiences. Over all, I think learning how to write with quality, quantity and techniques of writing has made me a better writer.