English 112 was the second online class I completed in the fall semester at Tidewater Community College.  I decided to take this class due to the ease I had in English 111 and to take advantage of the flexibility an online class offers. If I were to have it my way, I would enroll in hybrid classes which give you the best of both worlds. With both English 111 and 112, I did not learn as much as I would have if the class would have been regular lecture style.  Honestly, both classes reiterated the same concepts I had learned in high school and further confirmed my ability to adequately write at the college level.  However, this class allowed me to experience communication by means of the written word, rather than verbal instruction with a professor and interaction with fellow classmates, which is a unique experience. Secondly, I grew to love helping others in their writing through the use of peer editing.  In the end, there were things I learned through this class that I can apply to who I am as a writer, how I have developed as a reader, and what I have learned as a critical thinker.

As a writer, I have learned that I need to condense my words and be able to effectively communicate what I am saying and to be able to write in various different styles using one particular method and approach. In my particular case, writing is a gradual process, and I look forward to continuing to grow in composing assignments more effectively.  I have observed that I can write an effective paper but it may take me longer to fully process what I will be discussing and how I can best tackle it.  This class has shown me that I fully understand the layout of a well written paper but that I still have room to grow in using that understanding to write papers with eloquence and even more structure in the future. As a writer, peer editing helped me to deepen the basis of my own writing, by mere observation and critical evaluation of another’s writing.  Lastly, through this class I noticed that I am very thorough in writing and evaluating an individual’s composition, but that there is still room for improvement.

In order to become an individual who writes in a manner that is stimulating and challenging, one must engage in reading and critical thinking.  To be honest, in both English 111 and 112, I did not engage in reading any of the optional text.  Looking back, these materials would have further enhanced my online experience and may have helped me to go beyond high school writing assignments. On another note, in the last year or two, as a reader, I have been able to go from surface reading to deeper reading and am able to apply what I have read to different situations. I have found that I enjoy picking apart a book and being able to further apply what I have learned through the written word.

In the area of critical thinking, I have learned so much over the course of both English 111 and 112.  For example, my last essay involved critical thinking where I chose to apply the same material from a previous essay but had to fashion the ideas in a totally different way.  Outside the classroom or virtual cyberspace, my mind has begun to open up and learn new things which have allowed me to see that my processing problem is improving and can be overcome as I continue to learn and develop my writing, reading, and thinking skills.  Having examined how I have grown as a writer, reader, and critical thinker, I can observe the writing assignments that I enjoyed and had the most difficulty composing in English 112. 

It was difficult choosing a favorite assignment because I enjoyed the composition of all three essays. The essay’s topics were stimulating and challenging, each having their own set of ease and difficulty.  If I were to choose just one of the writing assignments, I would pick the first essay which made the writer focus on describing a picture.  I found this assignment very enjoyable because I love to make people think and help them dig deeper, to the core, of what different things mean and how those things apply to life.  This essay helped me to apply these same principles by describing in detail the obvious characteristics of the photograph along with my personal perspective on the deeper, less obvious, qualities.  The assignment can be broken into different sections, the first being the main element that set the stage for the remainder of the composition, the middle thoroughly describing the more obvious characteristics of the photograph, and the last section presented a blend of both obvious and writer’s perspective concerning the piece of art.  The detailed description of the thoughts, feelings, and positions of the characters in the image worked well in the essay. For example, “The image is arranged to show the less worried woman in front and the younger more anxious looking female in the background of the photo.”  Another example that shows the description of the emotions is as follows:  “The two emotions observed in the women’s eyes are very unique and are both similar and different from each other.  Though they appear to be pondering the same thing, the first woman has a lighter cast upon her face and shows a countenance that is worried but also appears to be hopeful about the situation.”  All in all, this assignment was enjoyable and spurred me to apply “digging deeper” principles to works of art.

The writing assignment that was most difficult was the third essay that focused on presenting a proposal argument.  I believe this essay was most difficult because it involved convincing others that a problem needed to be resolved and that the solution presented was the best in countering the problem. In order to successfully convince the audience, the writer had to critically think and fully understand the problem and the detailed components of the solution. Also, since I decided to use the same topic from essay number two, I had more difficulty fashioning those thoughts into a totally different set of thoughts and ideas.  Though I enjoy finding the root of an issue, it is still difficult for me to see the outcome and present something in an effective manner that will be persuasive.  I was able to temporarily counter this problem by pressing in and trying to really grasp the content by shifting my thinking to become more persuasive.  Though this assignment was a little challenging, it was enjoyable at the same time because I want to see change in today’s education system.  As far as countering the challenges of this type of assignment in the future, I would begin research right away and find adequate, trustworthy sources in the beginning rather than waiting till the end to plug them into the skeleton paper.  Additionally, I would develop my writing ability with these critical thinking assignments by choosing to write these types of assignments with various different topics.