Benavides 1

Josue Benavides
English 113A
Professor Ditch
8 December 2015
Reflection Essay
Enrolling into English 113A, I had encountered many problems within my writing skills.
Coming from a high school where they did not prepare me for this rigorous course, it was really
hard to keep up with all the assignments the professor assigned me to do. Before taking this
class, my writing was honestly horrible. I did not know many of the simple rules of writing.
Thus, throughout the course, I learned the appropriate rules that helped me grow as a writer. I
have my two Progression essays to support my argument about me progressing as a writer from
Progression I to Progression II.
Looking at Progression I, I did okay for my first college level essay. Throughout the essay, I
noticed my tone was not where it was supposed to be. For example, on page three on my
argumentative essay Masculine individuals tend to be more chill (Progression I). That is not
appropriate language to use when writing an argumentative essay. I changed my wording to a
more appropriate language. But in my Progression II argumentative essay, I improved my writing
language a lot. I used a more formal tone when introducing and explaining my argument to my
reader. If you also notice, my grammar improved as well. In Progression I, I did not correctly put
the commas or commas correctly; as well as my wording. In Progression II, I improved in my
grammar. I effectively put the commas where they needed to be and I also quoted very well.
Although my first paper was not great, I improved a lot in my second paper, my structure and
formatting were a lot better than my first paper.

Benavides 2
I am going to introduce how I improved using rhetoric in my writing. In Progression I, I
didnt really know what it was and what it means. In class, I learned that rhetoric means to
improve the capability of writers or speakers that attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate
particular audiences in specific situations; using any kind of evidence to make my argument
stronger and better. When using rhetoric, I learned you have to ask yourself who cares. What
about it? How does it connect to this argument? And when did this happen? In Progression I, I
did not use rhetoric effectively. I did not ask myself why? Who? What? Or how, and I think that
was the reason why my argument was not fully supported correctly. For example, Society has a
way of doing things and if that individual does not fit on what society says, they will be
marginalized (Progression I). I did not thoroughly explain how society will marginalize
individuals who did not follow the socially constructed gender roles.
In Progression II, I improved in explaining my evidence better. I started off with a quote
and at the end, I explained it how it connects to my argument and how it backs up my argument
to make it stronger. For example, Persons who perform the activities considered appropriate
for another gender will be expected to perform them poorly; if they succeed adequately, or even
well, at their endeavors, they must be rewarded with ridicule or scorn for blurring the gender
line (Devor 40). Here we have a single masculine father raising two children and playing the
roles of both parents, even though society expects him to do extremely poorly at being nurturing
which is perceived as feminine, doing it perfectly. And because of this he is being criticized for
becoming feminine and according to Devors article, he is doing gender incorrectly, therefore, he
is marginalized from the masculine group of society (Progression II). In Progression II, I
improved explaining my quotes and how it connected to my argument and example. From

Benavides 3
Progression I and Progression II, I improved from lacking in explanation of the usage of quotes
and evidence.
The last thing I want to argue to my readers is; the thesis. In Progression I, my thesis was
not very detailed. It was in a sense, but it lacked a bit of more explanation. My tone was a bit off
and it was not really thorough. In Progression II, I had a very academic tone. My thesis was well
organized and very thorough. Another thing that helped me progressed was learning how to
rhetorically summarize an article or book. In my first essay, I did not really explain why the two
authors wrote the book nor about what the articles about. On Progression II, I focused on what
the articles were talking about based on my argument.
Throughout this class, it really helped me to improve my writing. Coming from a high
school where little did they prepare me for college level writing was a challenge for me. I may
not show it thoroughly on here, but my evidence is there. Looking back on my first essay, I saw
many easy mistakes that were fixable. For example, on Progression I, I was told to make a
connection from the argument to myself. The tone and style I chose to explain how it connected
to me were very off. From there I learned not to use an inappropriate example. Especially how
this class focuses strictly on gender, it was not a good call.
On a good note, I loved this class. Professor Ditch is such a good professor! Her work
and teaching style are just phenomenal. Although her workload is a lot, it kept me right on task to
be successful in this class. I learned you have to have a growth mindset in order to achieve
greatly in this class. I did not get mad at myself for getting a B-minus on my first essay. I rather
told myself I will do better on the next one. This class is all about kaizen; which is the
continuous improvement on your work.