Yenilsse Munoz

5/21/2025

ENGL 21002

Prof Brandon Borcoman

Being part of this English 21002 was a very great experience  since I had learned a lot of new useful tools or implements to be a better writer in other classes during other semesters or in any other type of writing that you have to develop. I think one of my favorite assignments during this semester in this class was the peer cultural essay since we all had the chance to know each other better while working in this assignment and at the same time learn more about a new culture or different cultural tastes different from ours. Something I feel I didn’t like some much from this class is the group work or group activity we used to do on a every single class because I’m not that type of person who likes to who likes to participate in group conversations or who likes to raise their hand a lot in class to share what we all discuss in the group. Other than that, I feel this course has helped me a lot in writing since I think I’m being more specific in my own writing after taking this class and also had learned how to defend more my point on any topic or author idea which I’m trying to prove. Some important course learning I had achieved or not achieved on this semester in this class are develop, practice, understand and use and MLA citation since many of them were easy for me to learned because are some of them are related to the work of other teachers, while the others I didn’t learn much from, I had done before in other classes but not as much as in this class.

Developing is one of the first course learning outcomes which I had learned a lot during this semester since now I know how to use a better vocabulary in my own writing and how to build my sentences every time I want to come up with a new idea having a organize structure by connecting my ideas logically so that any them look out of order. For example, on my revised thesis assignment I had wrote a original thesis statement for culture is ordinary essay which says “Culture is not a separate context or a special activity, but rather a fundamental and ordinary aspect of human life, intertwined with everyday experiences and practices, in order to challenge the idea of ​​culture as something elite or intellectual, emphasizing its presence in all aspects of society and in the mind of every individual.” and then I changed to “Culture is not an individual context or a special activity, but rather an essential and common component of human life, intertwined with everyday experiences and practices.” After reading this, we can see how I try to change a few words so that my sentence would look more sophisticated and at the end the people reading it could better understand what I’m trying to say by cutting out unnecessary phrases so that the meaning of my message wouldn’t be lost. Another example is in my subculture essay 1st draft where it says “A scene or anecdote that caught my attention while I was taking notes for my fieldwork assignment was seeing a girl who looked Chinese, or I’m not sure if Japanese, as I was getting off the train. She had many characteristics that identified her as the subculture that I’m basing my writing on. This girl had very white skin, a light pink, cute outfit, and she was carrying a backpack with a small stuffed animal that stood out a lot. She was carrying it hooked on the backpack while she walked down the stairs to get off the subway platform.” After this, we can realize how I had used very specific descriptions while describing this person I had seen and how I had put each description in regular order. This is one of all the course learning outcomes I had learned in this class during this semester since I feel it is a very important strategy which everyone has to be aware of and apply it in every writing you do.apply.

Practice is another course learning outcome which I had learned this semester since I had used a lot of resources from the internet, library or texts to locate sources in my writing. In the same way as I have read many essays and writings from other writers to learn something new from them so that it can help me improve my writing a little more. For example, in my culture is ordinary essay, I provide some resources or evidence from the essay to help me support my thesis statement and my understanding based on what I read in this writing. An example of this is:  “If the people in the teashop go on insisting that culture is their trivial differences of behaviour, their trivial variations of speech habit, we cannot stop them, but we can ignore them.They are not that important, to take culture from where it belongs.” (Williams 4) This is showing how I apply a quote from a text to support my own point and check what I am referring to in an explicit way. Another example of this is Williams’ experimental essay, The Rhythm of the Ordinary: Rethinking Cultural Value through Raymond Williams which the professor gave us in one class while we were working on our culture is ordinary essay. After reading that essay, I got an idea of how my essay should look and that gave me a sense of how I could develop my writing more. This is another course learning outcome which I had learned during this semester since these are elements that help a writer to be more developed and expressed to convince everyone of our concept in our own writing. 

Understanding and use is one specific course learning outcome which I didn’t understand a lot during this semester since it is the first time for me working with writing and AI at the sametime and I feel I didn’t apply this term how I should do it in all of my writing since I’m not sure how does that work. In addition with term of citation in MLA which I’m not sure if I do a great job with that since I’m ot sure if the way I did it in all of my writing is the correct way I should apply it in other future writings. For example, in my culture is ordinary essay, I had add a quote from this text and I’m not sure If did a great job with that or not at the end when I applied it. This quote is: “There are many versions of what is wrong with our culture. So far I have tried only to clear away the detritus which makes it difficult for us to think seriously about it at all.“ (pg 5) As you can see here, I don’t know if this is the correct way I should do MLA citation where I have to apply a text quote and finish it with the page number how I did it here, after mentioning the author’s name at the beginning before putting the quote. Another example is with the assignment AI Transparency Statement which I should have applied a sentence related to the thesis statement I used for my Culture is Ordinary essay and AI, which as I said before I never learned to use this technique with my writing and that’s why I stuck with the thesis statement I developed myself. This explain two specific course learning outcomes which I didn’t learn a lot as the other ones in class during this semester and would like to learn later in other classes since each of these techniques is what makes a good writer and that is why it is important to learn it since we never know what topic or writing we will need it for in the future.

This semester turned out to be one of the most difficult for me, but at the same time, it was crucial during my time at this university. Just as I completed many assignments for this class, I was also able to practice and express my ideas more as a writer. I also learned to interact a little more with my classmates, even though I didn’t feel as comfortable as possible because they did this activity very often, mostly in all classes. I would have liked the teacher to do it one class and not the next, and so on. Other than that, it was a great experience to be part of this class!