Final Blog Post

                My experience in English Composition 111 has been nothing but pleasurable. I had a lot of anxiety entering into this class due to the fact that I had not taken a college class since 2000. Part of my anxiety started to fade away after I received my first graded assignment, and I got 25 out of 25. I saw that I was capable and grew some confidence.

                The way we did all the group assignments really helped to learn to open up and work with others without being so nervous, and that is where the rest of my anxiety started to fade away. I thoroughly enjoyed these groups as well as the partner assignment and the peer reviews. I hope that in some of the next classes I take that these same types of learning styles will be applied because I found them so helpful! I have no problem socializing when I know someone but that getting to know them piece was tough for me until this class. During the profile assignment I was made to get a phone number of my partner. I needed help after I missed a class and had I not gotten that number  I wouldn’t have found my way into the library learning about their resources.

                I did find that I tend to procrastinate until the last possible moment. I imagine since the work I do in a hurry has been graded decently that if I was to do it in advance and slower it would probably be even better. This is one tip I will continue to remind myself during the rest of my college career! Thank goodness I learned this early on with a great class and an awesome teacher who helped even when I put it off until the last minute! I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better first class experience honestly.

Reflection of my Modest Proposal

On this essay I basically did an expansion of my pitch presentation. I took my outlined slides and all my notes and turned the information into paragraphs. I decided to stick with the same topic due to my passion and knowledge of the issue of adolescent drug addiction. Through all of our assignments I have found it so much easier to come up with a better final copy if it is something pertaining to myself or information I am very confident that I’m fluent with.  Since being in this class everyone is aware of how close to my heart this topic is, so I assume you guys almost expected it!

I was extremely grateful to have some sources already from my pitch, making my research time lessened. Although I found more information to add to the essay as well as my slides I had a huge head start. I know from hearing others talk, that coming up with the topic was the hardest part for them, so I guess I saved myself a lot of stress!

I will say I really was excited initially about writing this as a satire. I did not end up doing that because I allowed my lack of confidence to hold me back. My grades should show me that my insecurities are irrational, but for whatever reason I listened to them still. I am very excited to hear others’ presentations that were done satirically so if ever presented with this option again maybe I will have a clearer understanding and go for it.

I feel especially comfortable with my paper and presentation now that I’ve received my feedback from the pitch presentation. Although no one said it in their comments I know my two biggest fallbacks in the pitch were the amount of text per slide and no images. I am going to utilize that knowledge to better this one, mostly by taking the statistics and specific schools mentioned and showing them in images in my new presentation. I hope I receive a decent grade from the class again and that they are not too disappointed it’s the same topic since I’m switching it up a bit.