The English course was one of the challenging courses for me. Strong reading skill and writing skill are the most important requirements to receive a high grade in every English course. I usually spend a lot of time on reading since English is my second language. For me writing is a way for people to express themself.  English as my second language, there are usually a lot of new words for me to understand without translating it. In order for me to understand what the article is about; I need to translate the reading into French and that will take me half an hour to understand that article. Writing is also a difficult thing to do. I spent a week to write an essay because I gather information slowly. So, I am not that perfect at writing, but it is much easier for me than reading. In order to receive a good grade, I always start my essay a week before the professor gives us the assignment guideline, since we have the syllabus. So, in that case I will have time to edit my essay with guidelines she or he gave out, and also correct the grammar and vocabulary mistakes. This semester was very different from the last couple semesters I have spent at CCNY, this semester everything is online everything is through zoom no physical assistant. All the helping centers were closed like PAL center and the Writing Center. Through this English 210 course, my reading skills and writing skills have been improved just a little, but I know that I still have a lot of things to improve about reading and writing.

In the beginning of the course, we discussed that English is a very difficult class because it is based on a lot of reading and writing. As a freshman, I realized that reading is connected to successful college life. Knowing that my reading speed is slow, and bad for me, when I have to read a book or article that contains many pages.  I learned that skipping is a very helpful reading technique that can improve my reading speed and have a basic understanding of the reading. But after I realized skipping some parts  is not really beneficial for me or any other student because you will not understand the author’s purpose and his thesis deeply. I also learned that paying attention and highlighting important words and sentences are helpful in reading. These reading techniques were more helpful than the skipping technique. This reading technique was very helpful for this English 210 course, since we had a reading every week  and also useful for my other courses and my college’s life. They are helpful when I need to search for information and evidence to support my papers. Reading is important and having strong reading skills is very crucial for every college student. I still need to improve my reading on learning new words and  reading speed.

The first essay assignment was the introduction letter, we need to write about ourselves as writer and reader. I thought it was easy to write about my own life, but actually, it was not that easy. After the first draft, I received some feedback and suggestions about the body paragraph and the conclusion of my paper. My teacher suggested that I could give more details to my body and how it will  affect the reader in order to have an interesting ending. She  also suggested that I should add to creating an interesting story. She also pointed out that I have an interesting story which increased my confidence to write a second draft. Through this first paper, I thought that I was the best writer ever writing. In conclusion, sometimes I added some new information that does not relate to my thesis. A conclusion plays a very important role in an essay, a good conclusion makes a paper more meaningful and significant. To make my paper more interesting for my readers, I learned that I need to add more detailed descriptions of sensory language in order to create more interesting images for my readers.

The second essay was the  interview assignment, which  was much harder than the letter of introduction since I need to interview my classmate about the subculture she or he belongs to and based on the answers I will get from them I have to write two to three pages of essay about their subculture. In  order to explain my thesis and state my purpose clearly, I found that the notes I learned were very helpful. During the interview I ask my partner several questions  throughout the email that she fully answers to which help me to write about her subculture. In that essay I didn’t do well because I did not do the head to head interview because of covid 19, we did it throughout zoom and email, so that affected my grade.

The third assignment was the online community based on the subculture we talk about in our research paper. That last assignment was very hard for me because I had to attend one event, get two interviews and the big image of all. It was a little stuff because of the covid, everything is online. Since nothing comes easily in life I went through it.

I learned that I should be more confident in my writings after my third paper.I appreciated that she encouraged me that I had a great idea to write about. I realized that the most important thing is that I need to be confident in my writing in order to improve my writing. If I lose confidence in myself, then I could not have the confidence to persuade my readers either. I also realized that the first draft did not need to be perfect because I could receive feedback on my essays and had the opportunities to fix the mistakes on the essays. I believe that practice makes perfect.

The English course was not an easy subject for me as a writer, but I felt great about learning all the useful things through this class.

Through this semester, I learned how to make a website to arrange my portfolio and also know how to take double note entries by observing an area or room. I learned how to find sources. I skip sources and read abstracts from every source which can save my time. When I found out that the source matches my topic and supports my thesis, then I annotated the sources and organized them. I realized that peer review and the feedback from my classmates and teachers were very beneficial for me, it was great to know what other people thought and opinions. I learned how to find sources which are helpful for writing research papers. This English course ended, but those reading and writing skills and double note entry and knowledge that I learned from this class will be very helpful for my college life and my future careers.