English
1 in a Nutshell
To be completely
honest, I was relatively looking forward to taking my first college level
English class this semester. I have never been very enthusiastic about English,
writing, or anything like that, though I never really minded it. My senior year
of high school, I had a great teacher for my modern literature class that
changed my perspective a bit. I am not really sure if it was the the course
material and the books we read, my teacher and his teaching style, or the
people and discussions we shared in class. Perhaps it was a combination of all
these things that sparked my interest in writing and literature. All I know is
for the first time in my life; I was looking forward to taking an English
course. I was looking forward to learning more about critical thinking and
analysis of literature, as well as sharpening my writing ability and
understanding of deeper metaphors found in various forms of writing. While I
now know that what I was seeking is more along the lines of the curriculum for
English 3, English 1 was not without its charm. Despite the often treacherous
drive to the Long Beach City College Pacific Coast Campus at the early hour of
7:30am, I can now reflect on the course and what I have taken from it.
Shitty
First Drafts
While
some might be thrown off by its rather unique title, Shitty First Drafts holds
a lot deeper meaning to me than it may to most. To me, it symbolizes three very
impactful aspects of the course. First of all, it was one of the first things
we read and analyzed as a class, and its crude title acted as a sort of comic
relief for a new group of classmates to interact with each other and the
instructor. Hearing the teacher say the word shitty several times throughout the lesson lightened the tense mood
that is often felt for the first few weeks of class. Second, the writing itself
was actually quite good, and expressed a very valid point that even the best
writers often have very shitty first drafts. The important thing is that you
start writing, get something down, and then you can work with it from there.
Sometimes you can get so focused on what to write and making it perfect, you
end up stumped with a blank page. Lastly, it represents the importance of
editing, revising, and modifying your work. Shitty first drafts are exactly as
they are described, shitty. Throughout the year I definitely learned the
importance of revision. Through peer edits and the teacher’s comments left on
the first draft, I was able to see that my writing could become significantly
better and more refined through various drafts, edits, and revisions.
Advertising
While
we read multiple writings and excerpts about the many aspects of advertising, I
could not simply choose one, and felt it necessary to simply acknowledge the
entire unit. It is a rare occurrence that students are looking forward to
reading the assigned material. Well, maybe not looking forward to, though I can
definitely say I enjoyed the readings and found them all extremely informative
as well as interesting. It was really quite mind blowing to read about the
various forms and techniques of advertising, and recognizing their prevalence
in society. It is one of those things that you never really noticed before, but
once you know it, you recognize it EVERYWERE. I will never look at a department
store or grocery store the same ever again. What was almost more disturbing than that was
the unethical and manipulative use of children’s advertising. Even if we had
only read this, and not been assigned to analyze and write about it, it is very
valuable information. While advertising was probably my favorite unit, this
paragraph is less about that, and more about the importance of all three of the
units in general. Props to Professor Rowley for picking such interesting topics
for the units. Even if you took nothing about English away from the course, at
least you learned some pretty cool stuff. I believe that it is because of these
interesting topics; misconceptions, advertising, and unseen aspects of
technology that I was able to really get into my writing. Often time English
prompts are dry, though I genuinely found the material quite interesting, and
therefore was able to excel in my writing. This taught me the importance of
subject matter and topics in writing, and how they can drastically affect
quality and style.
Quote
Sandwich
While this may not be quite as
important as some of the more general themes of this year, I definitely feel as
though I became more aware of citing work in MLA format, and using my quotes
effectively. Honestly, my least favorite part of writing an essay is doing the
works cited page. I would rather write a four page essay than 1 page of works
cited, and it would probably take me about the same amount of time. While I
absolutely hated the assignment of practicing the works cited page, I at least
now feel much more comfortable in my ability and knowledge of MLA format, which
will prove very useful as I continue my college career. Also, the quote
sandwich itself helps me to better explain quotes, and therefore improve my
writing. Sometimes I would just throw a quote in there, and think that the
reader should be able to follow my train of thought and understand its context.
This is often not the case though. Using the quote sandwich ensures a proper
citation and detailed explanation of its importance.
Citizenfour
Finally,
I reflect on one of my favorite days in English 1. I am a big fan of good
documentaries, especially about super interesting topics. I had heard about and
somewhat followed the whole Edward Snowden situation when it was happening, but
did not have a lot of the details. Watching Citizenfour was really just
awesome. I was enthralled throughout the entire film, and it was so cool that
it was part of the subject matter. It really fit in perfectly with what we were
learning about, and at the same time was quite a captivating story. To top it
all off, Professor Rowley brought donuts. I never thought that in college we
would have donuts and watch movies. It felt like the last day before winter
break in high school.
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