During my final days of the semester, I often look back at what I’ve gained from my English class, and I definitely know that I am going to take the skills I learned during this semester with me for the rest of my life, so I say that the first ever skill I have ever gained during this semester had to be me gaining enhanced critical thinking skills. I say this because I have developed strong critical thinking skills by analyzing complex texts and participating in thoughtful discussions like the discussion boards that I have done in my English class throughout the semester. Adding on to this claim of mine, I would say that freshman composition had me evaluating different perspectives when writing essays. This could eventually, in the end, help sharpen my ability to think critically and even improve my analytical skills. So according to my “translation 2” feedback created on November 29, 2025, it states, “So based off my reviews, I have gotten many of my audience found the memes were funny. However many, others also found that my presentation had too much info, and it’s better off being a poster, or it’s better off having a different type of writing format.” This constructive feedback overall helped me think harder about what to add and what to remove, so in other words, the translation 2 feedback, which was done in class, had actually helped enhance my critical thinking skills by making me see all sorts of perspectives, so what this means is that I evaluated information from multiple viewpoints critically because of the feedback.

Next let’s talk about another experience or insight I have encountered or learned during this semester in my freshman composition class. I would most definitely say that I have somewhat improved my writing proficiency based off the feedback I have gotten throughout the semester in freshman composition. The feedback I have gotten for my writing proficiency throughout my semester was actually helpful, so for example, this could include a feedback response saying to be more specific about my topics I’m discussing in my writings or my analysis, or this could also include me fixing up any citations I have gotten wrong. Overall, this was very helpful to me and helped me improve my writing proficiency in the long run. Trial and error is what built my writing proficiency, to say the least. According to my “3-page synthesis” created on the 10th, the feedback states, “In your first sentence, clarify what kind of rights.” This feedback actually made me go into depth on what I meant when mentioning immigrant rights in my synthesis essay. This has also made me reflect, or in other words, question myself. For example, I would typically say, Am I making sense to the reader when writing, or does my work look a bit rushed? So i would overall say that this straightforward feedback from my synthesis essay actually helped me craft a more persuasive and a more  coherent essay I say this because straightforward feedback makes me examine things in a critical manner, encouraging me to try and perfect my writing proficiency.

Now let’s dive deeper into what else I experienced during my journey this semester. Since I’m always getting literacy shoved down my throat, I would say during this semester I definitely have expanded my knowledge of literacy. I say this because my freshman composition class studies all types of different reading genres from a range of authors. My freshman composition class would also examine poems and dialects lots of authors feel comfortable with expressing to the readers. However, I feel like because my freshman composition class examines so many of these genres and topics, it increased my knowledge of literacy. Some texts like to use symbolism, and I easily would catch onto it, according to Amy Tan in “Mother’s Tongue.” It states, “Lately I’ve been giving more thought to the kind of English my mother speaks. Like others, I have described it to people as “broken” or “fractured English.” Therefore, this actually helped me understand the symbolism the author was trying to convey when the author titled the reading as “Mother Tongue.”  I understand now that the author was trying to portray her mother as not much of a fluent English speaker just based on the title alone.

I will now discuss some of the last experiences I have had during my semester in my English composition class.  So, to elaborate further, I definitely would say I have learned refined communication skills mainly through class presentations; this therefore made me somewhat a  more confident and effective speaker. I have also realized that it’s always great to try to connect with your audience when presenting since it would get the audience engaged, and it would grab their attention spans if you express yourself more. According to my “translation 1,” it states, “My old English teacher took me out of my shell and forced me to talk to people I didn’t like. FYI, I low-key didn’t ask for that.” This shows how expressing my feelings more actually helped me build my refined communication skills. I say this because expressing my feelings can help me build up thoughts and ideas when presenting. 

So overall, in conclusion, in this journey in my semester, I have learned so many things, and I will gladly take them with me. I am thankful for all these trials and errors I have experienced now because I know without these experiences, life itself would eat me alive, so I’m going to need all the skills and experience I can get from this semester if I want to progress. Through more semesters 

           Citations: 1-“translation 2 feedback,” created November 29th, 2025.

              2-   “3-page synthesis” created November 10th 

3-Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” 1990. University of Missouri–St. Louis, https://www.umsl.edu/~alexanderjm/Mother%20Tongue%20by%20Tan.pdf

4. Jones, Maurice. “Translation 1.” 10 Nov., 2025