When I first started this semester, I had no idea what to expect from English 110. I had just recently graduated from high school three months before starting English 110 and was very nervous about starting my college experience. I was especially nervous about taking a writing course because I was worried the writing course was going to be strict, intensive, and fast-paced. Throughout high school, my English teachers had constantly told me that writing in college was taken very seriously and that if I did not produce quality writing that my professors expected, I would fail and likely get left behind, so one could imagine that I already felt pressured to become a good writer.

To my surprise, however, English 110 was not as bad as my high school teachers made me believe it would be. In fact, the start of the course was quite interesting because we began by discussing language politics. To be completely honest with myself, before taking English 110, I had not given much thought to language politics. I admit to being quite oblivious before about how language affects our perspective of the world and how the world views us. That changed, however, once I started English 110. Thanks to the many texts we began with during the start of the semester, such as Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue,” June Jordan’s “Nobody Means More to Me Than You And the Future Life of Willie Jordan,” and Langston Hughes “Theme for English B,” I felt like I became more aware of the role language plays in society, specifically how language can be used to make people feel oppressed and place people in categories that may not reflect who they truly are. The concept of language politics became more apparent when I heard my classmates talk about their experiences with language. I was surprised by how many people have been looked down upon due to their accents(since some classmates came to America from another country) or their “broken English,” for lack of a better term, and it made me more mindful of the struggle people went through to reach the point they are now. Recognizing people’s struggles while trying to learn a language and learning about their feelings as they were dealing with their obstacles helped me become more empathetic towards people who may not speak a language perfectly, which also helped remind me of two important lessons I learned from before, which was to never judge a book by its cover and to treat others with respect because you do not know what they have been through.

Luckily, however, I also got to see the flip side of things because of the stories my classmates shared. I heard stories where my classmates used their language abilities to help people when they were struggling to communicate, and it made me feel hopeful about our future society. I saw that just like people use language to oppress others, we can also use language to help empower those who may feel like they don’t have a voice. It was after reading the written language and literacy narrative of my peers and seeing the videos and presentations they made for the spoken language and literacy narrative that I could say I was able to achieve course outcome 1, which was to “examine how attitudes towards linguistic standards empower and oppress language users” because I was able to see from multiple points of view how language created obstacles for some of my classmates and how language had been used to help others and empower them.

Another course outcome that I feel I accomplished quite well was course outcome 2, which was to “explore and analyze in writing and reading a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. ” When I first started English 110, I was confused about how to go about analyzing rhetorical situations because I did not really practice this skill in my previous writing courses. Thankfully, Professor Lobell gave our class a rhetorical situation worksheet that helped me better understand what I should be looking for when analyzing rhetorical situations. I was able to use this worksheet to analyze Amy Tan’s personal essay “Mother Tongue” and Safwat Saleem’s video “Why I Keep Speaking Up Even When People Mock My Accent,” which helped rewire my brain and change the way I read texts and allowed me to practice and develop little by little my ability to explore and analyze rhetorical situations. Since we continued reading many different texts throughout the course, I was able to continuously apply the steps of the rhetorical situation worksheet to help me determine why an author may have structured a text the way they had and what message they were trying to send to their audience. I also feel like I explored and analyzed a variety of genres throughout the course because our class got to see many different ways in which people have tried to express their message. We got to explore poems, personal essays, videos, scholarly journals, and profiles throughout the course and the diversity in the type of genres we examined helped show me that there is more than one way for a person to deliver a message.

The course also involved a lot of collaboration with my classmates, and I feel like this has helped me improve my writing because it allowed me to get different points of view about a subject that I may not have considered. Having a different pair of eyes review my written work was quite helpful because it allowed me to see where I needed to emphasize a point I was making or where I needed to revise my writing to make it more understandable and less overwhelming for the reader. I also got the chance to practice my drafting skills quite a lot throughout the course because every time we had to write a major assignment (such as the peer profile, the research essay, and the language and literacy narrative assignment), we took a good amount of time to read about the topic we were going to write about, brainstorm ideas for the stance we will take in our writing, and then begin drafting our work to bring the ideas together. I often found that drafting was quite helpful in developing my writing because it gave me a chance to free-write, in a way, and then I used the time for revision and editing to polish up my work and make it more reader-friendly. Since I had created many different types of drafts and utilized new ways to revise my work throughout the semester, I feel like I was able to complete course outcome 3, which was to “develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing.”

The second writing assignment, the peer profile, for English 110 helped me accomplish course outcome four, which was to “recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations” because I had to figure out what rhetorical strategies a classmate used to begin writing my profile. This assignment was very new and challenging for me because I had never written a profile before, so the whole writing process felt strange, and I had to get out of my comfort zone to complete the assignment. The assignment, however, did help me practice identifying rhetorical strategies in my classmate’s writing and it also helped me practice using rhetorical strategies myself so I could best introduce the person I was profiling to the readers. Although the assignment wasn’t my favorite, it definitely helped me gain some valuable skills that I feel helped diversify my writing and make it more interesting, so, overall, I’m grateful I got to experience this new type of writing assignment.

For the last course learning outcome, which was to “understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences, ” I feel like I partially completed this objective. I don’t think I did this objective to the best of my abilities because I often struggled with choosing a specific audience for my writing assignments and often settled with standard audience members such as my classmates or the professor. Due to this simple way of choosing my audience, I feel like I was unable to use technology or print to spread my message to a wide range of people who would have potentially been interested in the writing I created. So, although my written work partially addressed some audience members, I feel like if I had put more effort into deciding who the message I was writing was going to target, I could’ve better used my resources to reach a wider audience and therefore have my message heard by those who may have found my writing as a good/interesting read.

Despite not accomplishing all the course learning outcomes this semester, I feel like I did quite well in writing, considering that I don’t even enjoy writing as much as other subjects. I was able to improve my writing thanks to the help of my peers and the lessons I learned throughout the semester, and overall, I feel like this course helped me better appreciate the amount of work that goes into writing. I feel like I made real progress in improving my writing, and I am pretty grateful that my classmates and professor constantly helped me to improve my writing and that they did not judge my writing style. My experience in writing this semester was quite pleasant, and I hope I continue using the tools and lessons I learned in this class to help me create better and noteworthy writing in the future.