Self Reflection of this semester. By: Lauren Henderson

As a student in college, I struggle with English class. Most of my struggles begin with not being sure of myself and what i write. I always keep to myself and do not engage in the writing part of it. I usually do really poorly on the research end of the class. My journey through English has been long and drawn out, but i have learned a tremendous amount of knowledge from both English 101 and English 102. During this semester i have improved in my critical learning skills dramatically. I have never really enjoyed critical thinking, reading, or writing too much. It seemed very complicated to me to understand. I have come a long way from where i started when i first began English 101 my first semester of college. As a critical thinker, my improvements have helped me be a better researcher. Research, for me, use to be my most dreaded area of English class. I would always procrastinate because i honestly did not know how to go about researching what I needed. One way this class helped me is to know how to research. It taught me what to use and what not to use. I really took a lot from the library session that we had before the third paper. Even though i really did not know how to use the library database, i was not going to ask about it either, because i did not think it was going to help me anyway. Turns out, I have used the library database for every single paper i have written thus far after that session. This helped me become a better critical thinker by using the STARR method mentioned in the library session. I would look at a piece of research and know if i could use it and where i could embed it into my paper. Therefore, this made my critical thinking skills better and helped me do better on my papers throughout the semester. As a critical reader, i struggled to really understand what i was reading when we were given passages to read out of "They Say I Say." At the beginning of the semester i would scan through them and wonder what it was talking about. I would sometimes get a gist of what it was talking about, but most of the time i did not. The problem was that i did not know how to break down a passage and understand bits and pieces of it. When Mrs. Thomas had us annotate each passage it really helped me to slow down and really think about what i was reading. Using Kaizena to give feedback to our fellow class mates really helped me to take bits and pieces at a time and understand each part. As a critical writer i have learned so much new ideas to really help me throughout college. Most importantly, i have learned how to arrange my paper so that it follows my thesis and makes sense to the reader. I use to include my thesis, not matter what, at the beginning of the paper. As a critical writer i learned that sometimes the thesis did not belong there. It was wherever it flowed the best. I also learned new ways to embed research so that it followed my flow i had going. During the end of the semester i read over the sample essays and this finally made sense. I was reading a sample paper that basically talked about the same thing mine did. It gave me some insight on how to organize my paper. I have come a long way from jotting ideas down and meshing them together to actually relating, weaving, and joining ideas to make a better paper overall. Over all I have learned that being a critical thinker, reader, and writer is not that difficult. It just involves some effort and really helps you with a lot through life in general. I use skills i learned from this class everyday in other classes as well. I have brought my grades in several classes just by slowing down and thinking critically about what i am learning about. I plan to use all the techniques we have used such as, the STARR method, library guides, and numerous passages out of "They Say I Say." As i progress in my education i really think that this class has helped me by helping me understand research and how to narrow it down to one topic. As a pre-nursing student, i know there will be so many research papers for me later on that will require critical thinking. I am so glad that Mrs. Thomas exposed me to different technologies that i could use in other classes down the road. I want to give Mrs. Thomas a special thank you for getting me to engage into my learning and also teaching me how to become a better critical thinker, reader and writer!