Self Reflective Letter to Myself

Throughout this quarter, we are focusing on different aspects of California. My understanding on California before I attended this class is “sunshine and beach.” In fact, what I think of is not true. There are more than I thought. After doing many exercises in-class or out-of-class, I learnt more about California, it is not only the geographic of the state, but more about Californian’s daily life, also on their dreams. In this English 1B class, I have learnt more about California morally, not just the physical view of the state. Moreover, I have enhanced my writing and reading skills to write a more fluent essay.

As mentioned above, I was learning about California this quarter. In my essays, I was not just focusing on one topic of California, but many of them. I wrote the identity of being a Californian and the dark side of California. I remembered when I stepped into the classroom, I knew a little about California. However, after reading some articles in the book California Dream and Realities and the article “Silicon Boys” written by David A. Kaplan, I learnt about California Dream. Although the property of this dream is just same with the other, because it is special in California, therefore it is worth a unique name. This word is not familiar to me at first, but after I wrote my first two essays on discussing about the California Dream, I have better understanding on it. The word is related to the Gold Rush in California in 1850s, because it led to the rapid development of California, it also made the California a state full of diversity. However, this development not just enhanced the living quality, it also brought some bad effects. In my out- of-class essay #2, I am writing about the consequences of chasing the California Dream. During the class period, we are asked to divide into four groups. Each group has to design a teaching session and present in class. I remembered I was in the group teaching the poem “Indian Cartography” by Deborah Miranda, it was a interesting experience to me because I have never tried to have presentation in class in the form of teaching. This encouraged me to do more research on my assigned topic and learnt how to present my idea well in class. Although I am not using this poem as a reference to write my essay, I learnt about the struggling of those Indians who were facing the destruction of their culture. I did some research and wrote my essay. I loved it the most overall, because I loved to analyze problems. When I was in high school in Hong Kong, we were always writing this kind of essays. And it developed my interest on writing this. In these three essays, I learnt about the deep part of the state California. What I have learnt in this class is very useful to my future, no matter in my further education or when I started to work.

Before I came to the United States, I also studied English in my high school. The way to develop our reading skill is to read and read and read. However, we were not used to discuss the deep meaning or message the writer was talking about. I felt confused when I was doing that. It seemed I am learning nothing from those reading. And in my point of view, the purpose of reading was just preparing for your Advanced Level examinations to fight for your to ticket to the university. However, after few quarters studying English classes in Foothill, and this class should be my last English class in Foothill, I learnt about what is the real meaning of reading. During my English 1A and 1B classes, I had to do more readings than ever before. I had to write about something that I was not so familiar to. It was hard for me at first because when I looked at the writing guidelines for different essays in my English 1B class, I was almost fainted. Because I am not get used to read, or I should say I only read those which I am interested in, but obviously not the topic on finding the identity or discussion the dreams of California at first. When I was in class, I knew I made a mistake. I have learnt what is the purpose of reading; it is not just about your reading speed, but also to find out what the writer wanted to tell us. And soon I started to read more and more, and I learnt that if you want to have a better understanding on a topic, you have to do more research, read through those articles that might be useful for you to know more about it.

Professor Lewis told us that reading and writing are tightly packed together. Actually I did not feel it at all when I was in my high school since the English examination had 4 parts: reading, listening, writing and oral presentation. I always thought that reading did not relate writing so much. However, in this class, while I was writing the essay, the other thing I was doing is reading through the essay and the sources I found for quotations. About my writing process, before I start writing the essay, I have to write a detailed outline, which means I have to be done with my research beforehand. I am not get used to it because I am such a lazy person.  But the things did not go well when I was writing my essays, so I learnt to prepare all the stuff I need before I start to write the essay. During writing the essay, it does not matter if you make some mistake or present your idea badly, this is just a problem of wordings, and it can be easily fixed. After writing, I learnt to proofread the essay again, because it is a way to correct some minor mistakes inside the essay. Moreover, I also learnt about the importance of peer response. It is a way to let you know about other people opinion on your essay. This is a good way to both enhance reading and writing skills on both sides. And each other learn more during the process. About the writing product, I learnt about the flow and cohesion on the essay level. It is very important in an essay because it determines whether the readers want to read on or not. If your essay has a good flow, readers may find the track and they might find it interesting so that they keep on reading. On the paragraph level, I learnt about the importance of presenting your ideas. In a paragraph, it should be started with a topic sentence so that the reader can easily know what you are going to talk about in the following paragraph. And then you write about the support of the topic sentence. It is a good way to promote your idea to others. On the sentence level, I learnt about different sentence structures and how they affect the fluency on the essay. I learnt about the appositives. It helps me to connect my ideas in a more fluent way and it enhances also the paragraph level and the essay level.

In this course, I have learnt a lot, not just on California, but also on the reading and writing skills. When I looked at my grades of my essays, I really see that I am improving. It is a great encouragement for me because I have more passions to keep on doing those researches or writing essays. The topic we discussed in the class helps me to have better image on what I should do in the future. Take the out-of-class#2 as a reference, while I am chasing my California Dream in the future, I have to be aware of the side effects because of the dream.