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David Anderson
Professor Lynn Taylor
English 1010
26 April 2015
A Semester Far From Wasted: a Reflection
To be honest, I started this semester extremely frustrated with SLCC. Last year I had
tested into English 2010 and started that class. For the few weeks I was attending, it was an
exciting class for me. Id been wanting to sharpen and develop my creative and critical writing
skills for ages. But my work schedule changed in a way that made continuing that class
impossible and I had to drop it. One year later, Im back in a place where I can afford to spend
the time and money on school again and SLCC has just changed their policy so that no one can
skip 1010 no matter how good their placement test is. Obviously I was furious. I went to the
advisors office to see what could be done, expecting that my specific situation might warrant
some help from the administration. Instead I was greeted by arrogant hand-wringing tenureites holding fast and hard to the rhetoric of no exceptions. My disappointment with SLCCs
advice staff is a deep thing. A wide-eyed thing. Cold as iron, but somehow it warms me.
I tell you this to put my experience with English 1010 in context: I didnt bring the best
attitude to this class. But in the end, I came around and got a lot of learning done.
Class discussions were, if a little one-sided at times, stimulating. It was very nice to have
a place to give my own views a more distinct shape and discuss opposing views with civility and

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passion. The assignments had an excellent effect on my writing. Mainly, they forced me to
practice and remember things Id forgotten from classes past. But it was more than practice! I
now have a much better handle on some of the finer points of argument, like the concept of
finding common ground giving one greater credibility and making a case for why a given
argument matters at all. I also got a lot better at analytical and critical thinking as related to
literature. It was particularly enlightening to put a microscope on a famous persuasive speech,
in my case Roosevelts Pearl Harbor speech.
While I still would have preferred to have been able to take 2010 this semester, my
writing (and reading) have measurably improved, so this was by no means time wasted.