SEMESTER'S REFLECTION
12/15/24
Abstract : An overview of my experience, the goals I have achieved, and the next steps I plan to take, building on the skills and knowledge I gained.
Lasaki Oluwasola
I always felt I was the perfect writer, but starting my W131 class humbled me in the very best way. It is such a unique form of learning. I realized that it is not always about writing and just reading; I was able to practice everything I learned in class and apply it to real life.
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I heard the term "Immersion experience" for the first time, and I was fortunate to be recognized by a chief judge during my immersion experience. I had never been to a courtroom before that, and that memory lingers with me all the time. I read academic papers by authors like Berehulak, Percy, Minor, Kyle, Jennifer Percy, and my favorite of all, I learned from Professor Oesch-Minor. Working with my professor gave me the courage to showcase my research at a conference, something I had never done before. There was an amazing balance between classroom activities and real-life experiences.
I started off confused because of the cultural differences in the academic system compared to that of my home country, but that only made me work harder, and I realized how much I have grown as I met quite a lot of course goals this semester.
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I learned to shape, revise, and edit
I learned to shape, revise, and edit writing to meet the concerns of purpose and audience when I workshopped almost all my writing projects, especially my Writing Project 3 on Argument with my professor on December 3rd, 2024, and also with the help of someone from the Writing Center. Professor Oesch-Minor gave me thorough feedback on how important it is to be original when writing, and I applied this to shape, revise, and edit my works constantly. So, I scheduled a meeting with the Writing Center and brainstormed some ideas.
The section I worked on was in my opening statement, using an emotional appeal to start my argument. I wrote: “In the Marion County Supreme Court, a black mother sat quietly, holding a tissue, as her son stood before the judge. When the sentence of 15 years for a nonviolent offense was announced, her heart shattered. She cried out his name, reaching for him in tears. Their eyes met for a brief moment, filled with unspoken pain.” Using my professor’s office hours helped me shape, revise, and edit my works better than I had before I started this class.
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Another goal I attained was to create a clear and strong thesis and provide sufficient support while focusing on informations that leads back to a clear message. I also workshopped my Writing Project 2 about my immersion experience with someone at the Writing Center and finalized my draft after meeting with my professor on October 31st, 2024, at 9:00 AM.
I began to get comfortable with brainstorming my ideas with other people, and this really aided my writing and reading processes. Professor Oesch-Minor wrote feedback to me stating that I needed to explore ways to focus on families and how imprisonment of a loved one can affect their lives ,how the gavel plays a role in a courtroom, directly relating to my immersion experience. or other issues, like the gavel in a courtroom, directly relating to my immersion experience.
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I used a more specific approach that worked as a real life experience to serve that purpose. . One part that stood out states: “Judge Greenwood’s voice rang out, ‘I hereby sentence you to life imprisonment.’ He paused, his words hanging heavily in the air, casting a tense silence over the courtroom.” Getting feedback from my professor that I did a good job demonstrated that I made strong efforts in providing sufficient support for my experience.
I discovered, explored, and analyzed ideas
I discovered, explored, and analyzed ideas in order to write with a strong sense of ownership from the very moment I started this course, and I achieved this when I workshopped my first Writing Project 1, Movie Review with a consultant at the Writing Center on October 31st, 2024, at 3:00 PM. I was able to discover ideas that were very helpful in some of my paragraphs by adding expert opinions that I explored and analyzed to fit my work and argument. This particular goal built my confidence as a writer and i am proud to claim the works i have done and still do.​
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Through my time during this course, I learned some scholarly based work such as those from Carol Dweck, who spoke on Growth Mindset, and ever since, it has served as motivation for me. This helped me have a less rigid mindset towards my academics and social life. I absolutely relate because I usually have a fixed mindset that gets me stuck in the present. Dweck says, “When educators create growth mindset classrooms steeped in yet, equality happens.” This has made me understand that there is always room for growth as long as I put in the work, just like how this class is being run.
Another important moment from Pratt’s article that stood out to me would be: “The classroom functioned not like a homogenous community or horizontal alliance, but like a contact zone” (Pratt 39). This has helped me grow as a thinker because I now understand that the introduction of something new in a contact zone can be exciting, yet very complex, because it is almost impossible to have a unified social world due to the diverse understanding that every individual possesses. But when a teacher instills similar knowledge into students, it functions like a contact zone.​.
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Berehulak’s opening paragraph in his article "They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals" caught my attention from the very first sentence. The trouble was significantly described in the first sentence. He used the setting to establish the location of the incident, “Manila alleyway.” He incorporates onomatopoeia, such as “The thud, thud, thud of the rain,” to create a sensory effect that makes his language and article more vivid and expressive for readers. Reading Berehulak's paragraph engaged my imagination and helped create a reality for me to picture his experience as a reader. This made me grow as a writer to see how he opens in the middle of the plot rather than at the beginning, leaving readers caught off guard and wondering how the story started the moment they begin reading the article.
PEDAGOGY
LASAKI OLUWASOLA
Peer Reviews have been the highlight of my class periods, it has taught me to be better at reading other people's work and that has significantly changed how i read and write.
For someone who is not very tech-savvy, building my e-portfolio served as a multimodal discourse reflection tool.
It helped me grow both as a student and as a person. While it definitely took up a lot of my time, I wasn’t afraid to make mistakes; I learned from them because, like Carol Dweck says, "Not Yet."
This class was designed for improvement, and that focus on growth has helped me develop in many ways. It was a fun and impactful form of learning.