Water Crisis Reflection

When I first attended class, I thought that English 2 would be just like any regular English class. Everyone was quiet and appeared to be shy, however, I was surprised to see that the instructor was somewhat young. As the first day of class went on, I was also surprised to know that we would have class outside due to the instructor not bringing a key. I instantly thought the instructor was a bit odd but otherwise a cool guy. However, when I found out the subject of the semester would be about the California water crisis, I immediately became uninterested. The water crisis is something that should be addressed and considered, which I agreed upon, however, I did not expect the course to focus entirely on this subject. Nonetheless, I learned …show more content…
As the semester went by, I learned more and more about the water crisis through the many articles we read and also got the opportunity to work with others in class for a group project. The class exhibited a friendly and helpful atmosphere as I saw many students quickly befriending one another. Although I was not as interested in the subject, I still like the atmosphere of the class and how easygoing the instructor was. English 2 consisted of many essays, most which relates to the water crisis. The first essay was about the Cadillac Desert article where it states how water is being used in California to support a forged greenery and how many politicians and oil companies do illegal acts to steal water from farmers. The article was very long and difficult to understand but I did my best and underlined important details. In my essay, I summarized the article while also giving my opinions as to why this person did this or why this event occurred. I felt uneasy about this essay because of how difficult it was for me to understand, however, I received a good grade. The next essay was about comparing and contrasting three articles while utilizing the Toulmin method. At first, …show more content…
However, I failed the essay due to not fully understanding how to utilize the Toulmin method. I made revisions and believed I finally understood it, but I got a lower grade than the first grading. I still do not really understand the Toulmin method but it allowed me to think more carefully of the prompt and how to go about on my future essays. Next was the pirate essay where we had to watch and analyze a documentary. Again, I thought I did the essay correctly because I covered all the points stated in the prompt, but I failed the essay. In the comments, I was told that I had good ideas but I just summarized the whole documentary without analyzing it. I thought I did analyze it because I explained the details in the documentary, however, after carefully reading it again, I realized that I did summarize. I made revisions and took into account of not summarizing while also giving more details and my opinions over the subject, to which I received a better grade.