Ashley S. Williams

Being in ENGL 1102 has been an interesting experience. Before taking the class, I thought I would hate all of the material. I thought that I would be doing a lot of busy work. I thought I'd be misunderstood by many of my classmates because I often run into that in class outside my major(s). 

The concepts and ideas that I learned in 1102 reinforced prior knowledge, so it wasn't all bad. I really got into the class with the inquiry project. This was my chance to explore something that I knew nothing about, while still getting my points across. This semester in English, I learned a lot about pre writing. I used to have issues with pre wriitng because I like to get going. I had to stop and think about how I was going to put my pieces together. I used different ways of pre writing such as concept maps and lists. I learned the importance of considering your audience as a writer. I overcame my challenege of this by really over doing it on the explanation parts. I included things in many of my assingments that I thought were excessive or common knowledge. I think that this helped me write longer, more cohesive pieces.  I learned that certain kinds of pre writing go with certain kinds of assignments. For example, maybe its more beneficial to use a concept map of a ven diagram when you are comparing or contrasting 2 or more ideas. This class taught me that writing lists are okay and sometimes they really help you when you're writing an essay or a paper. I had some challenges with trying to manage my time appropriately for each assignment. Sometimes, I would wait til the last minute to complete an assingment and I would miss out on things like MLA format or including the source, easy things that could've been avoided if I had more time.  I also had problems considering my audience. I am very closely connected with the conceptual things that I am passionate about. Sometimes it is hard for me to take a step back and consider what others might not understand. This is important for words, concepts, or ideas. I enjoyed the inquiry project the most because of all that I learned during the project. I utilized mediums that I was not familiar with such as the wix site. I not only wrote a paper, but I had to include aspects of digital mediums. 

Ultimately, I learned how to gather information in new ways.

I won't reflect on my experiences here too much, but you can find the reflections in this font and color in other areas on my wix site!

Enjoy

-Ashley