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Luciana Pereira

English 101 G

Professor Bridget Roche

WILBUR WRIGHT COLLEGE

Reflection Essay

My writing skills have evolved mainly in these three areas: how to understand better

papers from professional writers, as well as getting people understand better my own ideas,

and also making me feel more confident in my papers.

English 101 brought to me how important and how benefit can be reading texts written

by professional writers. I considered reading newspaper for example, boring and old even

though I just tried a few times and did not deep practice on this. Fortunately during this course I

had to start doing this and analyze how different professionals write about the same subject

and how they give their opinion about that. And I realized how good that can be for my

development once that newspaper contains all the subjects in society, everything that is

happening in the world, the most pure reality. Developing this skill also helped me to be more

prepared for the in-class essays because even though we do not know which subject the

College chose for us, if I practice reading newspaper I will have more opinion and be more

aware of the world issues. For me this was the best skill that I evolved, making me feel that I

was learning effectively.

I also evolved in the area of getting people understand better my own ideas in the

paper. I understand today that writing is not just an action of sitting down in front of my

computer and start writing. The point of writing goes further, and requires thinking, planning,

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and reading others texts to make my essays better, clear and consequently understandable. To

reach this point I had to learn to see myself as the reader of my own essay because most of the

times I write things that completely make sense for me, but the reader in the other hand, as the

professor for example, does not understand my point of view. Seeing myself in both sides,

writer and reader, and also doing all this writing process is a big challenge, but a good way to

make people understand my papers.

Evolving in these two areas also made me evolve in the third area, get more confidence

in my papers. English 101 was an important step of my learning process and not just because

the course is really well-developed, but the reason for this goes further. When I realize that I

am in America, studying in a Community College, with a professor and students that were born

here having contact with this language all their lives I feel extremely competent. Honestly,

writing in English, as speaking or reading, is still a concern that I carry. However, I am sure that

with hard work and continuing my classes in the college will make me great in my second

language. All this confidence that I feel passes straight to my papers, which are getting stronger

and clearer, compared with the beginning of the semester.

These three areas that I evolved are extremely important for my future and more I am

going further at English classes, better I am going to be. The fact that English is not my first

language makes the writing process a little bit more challenge for me, but is this challenge that

will push me to improve my writing skills.