Semester Reflection

If I am to develop my personal critical thinking ability, I must first make a conscious choice to understand the basic concept of a premise and then make critical reflection of this basic concept by expanding my thinking approach. To achieve this, I must ask radical questions that will enhance the scope of analysis and judgment. I must move from the region of subconscious thinking to one of conscious thinking because in so doing, I become aware that I am actually thinking. This awareness will allow me to think beyond rudimentary concepts through critical reasoning and critical reflection to decipher underlying issues that are concealed in the concept under investigation. By understanding the predictable

What I learned in the documentary called “The First Year” is the aspects of each teacher’s way they deal a classroom with students as first-timers. Especially when coming across to many challenges and the struggle they had during their first time ever as educators. Watching what lengths they will go to for the benefit of the students is admirable. The teachers who are into five separate schools in the Los Angeles area are known to be George Acosta who teaches English as a second language, Joy Kraft-Watts teaches high school history, Genevieve Debose teaches middle school language arts and social studies, Maurice Rabb teaches kindergarten, Nate Monley teaches fifth-grade bilingual education, and Andrew Glass teaches elementary special education.

Over the course of the last six weeks, I have come to realize that critical thinking is an important asset as I continue my journey in life. I have found this course to be both challenging and rewarding. Most importantly, I find myself viewing problems and conversations in a completely different light. While I would not consider myself an expert at critical thinking, I would assess myself in as a Beginner Thinker. Paul and Elder point out in the beginning thinker stage an individual actively begins to take command of their thinking process across multiple facets of their life (Paul and Elder, 2012). Furthermore, we recognize that there are problems in the way we think and begin to consciously attempt to better understand we can improve our thinking.

This semester has taught me a lot about the different types of writing. I have learned how to draft and compose a rhetorical analysis based off of an author’s ethos, pathos, and logos strategies. Not only have I been able to critically analyze rhetorical papers, but I have been able to search for more information to support my ideas or beliefs. Even though this can be time consuming it is well worth it to have a lot of support and evidence to back my ideas or beliefs on a topic. Throughout this semester I have more of a general knowledge on rhetorical goals, critical reading and writing skills, my processes on how to write a paper, and learning a new way of creating an idea through electronical environments.

Over the first and second quarters of Dual Enrollment English at Brooke Point High School, I have grown immensely as a writer. I learned a great deal about how to write a paper, as well as, about myself. In the beginning of this course, I felt as if my assignments were going to overwhelm me; I also felt apathetic about completing them. This led me to create my own personal agenda as to how I would complete my assignments. My plan was to overcome my weaknesses and enhance my strengths within the construction my essays, depth of paragraphs and overall assignments.

Life is a cycle of learning and the dissemination of what we’ve learned. In each day of our lives we learn something new to add to our list of skills and knowledge. When I first entered university, I thought the writing courses were useless and just a waste of time since we all can write. Later, however, I realized how those courses are beneficial in improving our critical thinking and communication skills not only the style of writing.

Writing a college-level essay can be tricky, especially if there is lack of inspiration or the ideas aren’t organized well enough to articulate into a draft. However, in the case of higher-level education; students are encouraged to stimulate their learning through writing, in order to acquire an analytical and understanding capacity to be successful in college. Coupled with planning, research, and hard work; writing essays for college becomes an easier task in a short time, resulting in the improvement of critical thoughts. In the article, Using Writing to Promote Reading to Learn in College, Hayes Christopher G, states that, “the written text allows both reader and writer to examine thoughts captured in time and recorded in words, thereby encouraging more complex thinking because constraints imposed by memory have been abolished by the written record” (Hayes 4). After all, more than any other invention, writing has transformed the human consciousness. This mastery gives society the ability to improve every day, by enhancing their personalities, considering that having a good use of language and information, will result in achieving great success. In the article: Reconsidering English Teaching for Improving Non-English Majors’ English writing Ability, Yuru Shen declares how, “it is self-evident that grammar plays a very important role in language learning, including English learning” (Shen 74).With this in mind, understanding that college level composition is important will

The most important experience that has positively impacted my academic performance is being in AVID for the past 5 years. AVID is an acronym that stands for advancement via individual determination, a college preparatory class that helps prepare you for college, get organized, and set goals. I have been enrolled in AVID since 8th grade learning how to become a better student, improving study skills and the way I communicate with the students and teachers around me.

During my former English classes such as Introduction to College Writing and ENG Comp I. I’ve learned that both composition courses focus on two different perspectives on writing. In my opinion, I believe that my grammar has intensively expanded a lot throughout the past year I have been in composition classes. Although, at times I had difficulties with my sentence structure. I begin to practice writing in repetition. My writing skills are improving tremendously. I wish I would’ve put effort into my writing skills before I began college level writing. My writing was probably the most significant skill that hinders me in most of my English composition classes. But this was not the reason why my writing wasn’t up to par. I just never critique my writing in a detail way to show that my papers are revise and well organized.

Though I have spent many years learning English, it is an ongoing process that requires a lot of hard work. I was very glad to find out that the first four weeks of the course would be focused on grammatical rules and sentence patterns. Because I never focused on the structure of my sentences, I believe I wrote dull and flat texts. Moreover, my punctuation was terrible since I had no understanding of English punctuation. But the lessons on the sentence structure turned my world upside down: It was hard to believe that even simple sentences have such a great variety and can turn your paper into something very interesting in the terms of structure. Practicing skill of building effective sentences in the same essay was very helpful, for it allowed to focus purely on the sentence and structure patterns rather than on the context. My writing improved since the beginning of the semester and I became a more confident

I immensely struggled when writing. Taking my scrambled thoughts and uncoordinated analysis and converting it into clean and understandable words on a page was arduous. I could not express my thoughts in proper academic format. I understood the importance of writing to every subject. It was essential that I learn to condense my ideas and feeling into coherent written word. After much debate, I decided that the best way to improve my writing skills was to take an advanced English course.

Like going to the gym, deciding to go back to school to improve your way of life, or saving for a long-awaited vacation, critical thinking similarly requires a self-controlled, well organized, and strategic order of procedures in an effort to reach your intended goal successfully. Additionally, along this path of success, a thinker may find themselves in a “self-correcting” stage, as one may attempt to allow their biases, partiality, or ill-informed thoughts to take control. However, a well refined critical thinker can ascertain this success by actively and expertly enhancing their quality of thought. This can be achieved by implementing specific concepts; such as theory development, exploration, construction, and/or the investigation of material assembled. According to Paul and Elder, “Excellence in thought must be systematically cultivated”. Therefore, a critical thinker, must purposely put in the work to accomplish success.

After almost completed my first semester successfully her at Arizona State University, I got educated in a variety of subjects from my classes, but the class the inspired my the most and had a great affect in the way I look to my career was the Student Success in Business class WPC 101. I remember the first day of this class where I was required to write an essay about My Sun Devil Store, and from that moment I knew that this class is going to be full of inspiring materials. I have experienced from my first semester her at ASU many circumstances not only challenging but also entertaining with regards to my classes. The biggest takeaway in this semester is finding my strong skills in Math and computer applications, and exploring more about my Supply Chain Management degree as well.

This semester has been a tough one but I feel like I have learned a lot about pharmacy over these past few months. I have had a lot of courses so far and in each one, I have been able to make connections to the practice of pharmacy. In this essay, I will reflect on some of things I learned in my courses and how they relate to my future career as a pharmacist. I will also identify areas where certain topics intersect in different courses.

Over the course of this past semester, my ability to write has improved tremendously. Prior to undertaking this course, my expertise in writing was not as fine-tuned as it should have been. I had never previously been enrolled in a class specifically tailored to writing-- which was quite clear. Upon reading my past works, it becomes apparent that my writing style consisted of fluff, small words, and inconsistently structured sentences. These problems have, for the most part, been remedied with the coursework I have tackled in College Writing. Rather than long, drawn out papers that take an eternity to reach the primary point, my recent work is much nicer in terms of composition and grammar. I credit these improvements to the three primary