Project 4 Reflective Essay: Norma

This class taught me a lot, but the most important one was that it made me more comfortable with my own writing. When I first came to this class I brought my knowledge from my English classes from high school. I took a English class last semester but it was more about reading. I knew how to write essays where there was an intro in which it had a thesis statement that according to my teacher from high school was the most important sentence in the whole essay. After the intro we had a three-body paragraph, in which in each paragraph sometimes we needed to have a quote explain it in our own words and why we chose it. And at the end we had our conclusion in which we had everything summarized it was more of like a review. It also taught me how to do an elaborate research paper, which I've done before but it was more simple meaning that we didn't have surveys, experiments, interviews etc, which I found helpful because is a way to prove your theory.
One of the things that I learned during this course was doing SQRs. When the teacher first said that we were going to do them I had no idea what they were, I’ve never done them before. The first two SQRs that I did I was confused and kind of did them the wrong way. Then I started doing the others and I got used to it and. I also learned how to become a better writer and reader. The articles taught me a lot on information I didn’t know about school, they were kind of long and boring but they had a very interesting concept, like Misconceptions about reading and writing for example that grammar is more important than content, Funds of Knowledge which is the way we learn and Peer Response which helps both the reader and writer. I had done research projects on high school, but I really don't remember a lot about them, so doing the research was like refreshing my memory.
The questions I had this semester were why is it so important to have discipline while writing? Does a kid's background affect on the way they learn? Does helping on other's draft makes everyone improve their writing skills? What is the main thesis all about; Do you need to actually have one on a research paper? Do you have to be an experienced writer to have a good revision on another person's paper? After going to class and discussing it with everybody I have their answers, It is important to have discipline while writing because is a way you can express your knowledge and if you do it with discipline your writing will catch people’s eye. I think that culture does have a lot to do on the way you see things, or view the world. For a lot of children language is a barrier, but in fact these kids have the same capabilities as a person who speaks the language. Helping, or trying to correct other's essays does help a lot. In my case it gives me an idea on what I can change on the essay, and a way to make it better. Listening to other student's ideas helps me understand the reading better, and it gives me different points of view. In my opinion the thesis statement is about your main ideas, and what your paper is going to be about. I don’t think you actually need to have one, but you at least need to have a very well written paragraph that shows your main point. You don’t have to be an expert; everyone has their own ideas, which can help other people.
I learned that it is very important to listen to other people’s ideas and opinions, you might not agree with them but it is helps you understand something in an another person’s point of view. When we got in groups and talked to everyone and discussed for example the articles it was very interesting how they agree or disagree with me. We talked about how our projects were going, how we did them. It was helpful because I got to see that I wasn’t the only one struggling with my class work.
In conclusion what I found on my investigations like for example on the research paper which my hypothesis was that note taking helped students with their learning skills was that it of course helps them increase their knowledge, for me notes improve my grades, and I think is a big part on a students life. This class made me more confident with my writing, I am a better writer and I really enjoyed working with everybody, at the beginning it seemed that it was a lot of work but with everyone’s help it was easy.