Section 4

Reflection Essay

I have learned many things in just a short while this semester in this English class. There are many things that I enjoy doing in this English class that I did not necessarily enjoy in any of my other English classes. The way Mrs. Erturk teaches her class is unlike any class I’ve ever had, and I really think she has done a great job so far. There really are so many things that I have learned in this class that I could not name them all in just a short 500 word essay, so I will just hit on a few.

Discourse communities may have been my favorite thing to learn about in this class to date. Ann Johns writing was very insightful and relatable, which is why I liked it so much. I believe she hit the nail right on the head when she said “community membership requires a long initiatory process, and even then there is no guarantee of success.” (Page 511). Like I said before I can totally relate to that quote because of my pledgeship for Kappa Alpha Order. I really agree with her whole section on Community Conflicts and Diversity because I can relate everything she said with my experiences with my fraternity. If you have not noticed already, I really take pride in my fraternity, and anything I can relate to it, I am immediately interested in.

I have just recently been introduced to writing more than one draft for a piece of writing, and even though it is more work, I am not necessarily opposed to it. Mrs. Erturk has forced me (and not in a bad way) to reevaluate my work and continue to make it better by requiring just more than one draft to be turned in. I am a perfectionist in many ways, and my projects and papers are no different. I really enjoyed working on my PowerPoint for the genre project. I put a lot of time and effort in to make it look as perfect as I possibly could. I’m not going to lie either, it kind of hurt me that Mrs. Erturk did not like my idea of having computer voices narrate my slideshow because I thought it was original, and I wanted to be different.

While the ideas Mrs. Erturk has about the revision process, in my opinion, are very helpful, the execution is not up to par with me. I really do like the idea of peer reviewing and having your work constructively criticized, but in my opinion, I did not get enough ideas from my reviewers, Mrs. Erturk included. Now please tell me if I’m asking too much from my teacher because I know it is hard to make all of your students happy. I just feel as though I was more agreed with than actually criticized, and I was hoping to get an outside opinion or idea on my work, which is part of Tierney and Pearson’s writing structure. Well it’s a variation of it at least. All my classmates did was agree with my ideas or say that they liked my writing. Let’s be honest though, I’m not that good of a writer that not a single person could find something wrong with my writing.

The last little bit of information I want to talk about is Heath’s article on ethnography. I really enjoyed reading parts of it with each story about a different community. My favorite part of the article was the section on BEST: A Safe Place in a Danger Zone. It touched my heart that these underprivileged kids who lived in a gang infested area could find solace in a place where they knew they were safe. To me, a child is the most pure entity in this world, and no child deserves to have their lives ruined at such a young age just because they were born in the wrong neighborhood.

In conclusion, this class has probably taught me more in the half a semester, than any other English class has taught me in a year. I really enjoy working with Mrs. Erturk and my classmates. She has made me like writing at least a little more than I did before, but now I put my all in my writing, which is something I didn’t used to do. I cannot wait to see what Mrs. Erturk has in store for the next half of the semester!