Miriam Murcia

English 113 A
Professor Ditch
4 December 2014
Reflection Essay
My expectation on my English 113A class, in my perspective was met. I imagined before
I entered the class that I would have a lot of essays due and that my level of writing had to be
very good and professional. When I entered class what I didnt imagine was how much reading
was involved. Now I can see that reading is very important because it helps with analyzing text
and understanding them as you progress with your own social and educational life. Before I
entered the class I guess I expected to be harshly judged on what I wrote but that didnt happen
instead I received positive feedback and assistance from my peers and my professors. Some
things that I enjoyed about writing were the liberty to make my writing flow as I was thinking.
Thus far, in the essays I have wrote, I start with answering the prompt from there on I start to get
ideas that fly in my head as I keep writing without stopping. This method helped me to not think
about how long the essay structure was but on the content being provided. Some things that were
complex to me were backing up my arguments using other sources.
Something that I didnt expect in my English class was the course theme, Gender
Construction, I really liked the topics that we had to discuss and how at young ages we dont
notice how our society defines and divides males and females and the outcomes that this has
fixed our society to follow. Since I am a girl I never had thought about how western and other

societies can impact immensely on a persons life experience. The construction of gender really
helped explain why women and men live the majority of their life trying to feel accepted without
even knowing they are living under social roles and norms that undergo the idea of masculinity
and femininity. Since I have been learning and studying about gender construction I have really
seen my community and my surroundings differently. I tend to notice when masculinity and
femininity traits are being forced on to kids by their parents and the way some of my friends act
according to the social norm to fit in with others. This class has impacted the way I think, act and
speak because in some cases we can be saying something harmless to a friend but others could
see it as discriminatory or offensive. Watching how I am constructed has also made me think
about what gender I really am and how I feel about it.
In my English course some challenges I experienced were keeping up with my social and
educational life. I had some problems through the semester focusing in class which made it hard
for me to understand what was going on. One of the many challenges for me was to search up
scholarly articles. My professor, professor Ditch had a day in the library where they assisted us
on finding scholarly articles but as I was focused on my outside problems I couldnt focus and as
a result I didnt understand how to search anything up for my final papers. How I overcame this
challenge was by asking one of my peers for assistance and that helped me better understand
how to use a scholarly article to back my assertion. Another challenge that I have had was citing
my sources but I immediately received help by going on the Purdue Owl website to help me
better cite my sources. Some areas that I feel like I have improved on are argumentation,
understanding rhetorical appeals, my grammar, and punctuation. Something that has made me
proud is that I feel I can easily engage in class discussions and participate openly on my opinions

and thoughts. One thing I would tell a new student to succeed in this class is if the tough gets
going so should they, dont give up as hard as it may seem.