In all honesty, from the beginning of this course I had not
set goals or aspirations. I had taken this course before in the past and had to
drop it due to personal reasons. I remember at that time, feeling easily
discouraged and frustrated because I could never seem to find my focus.
However, this semester when I aspired to take the course again, and see it to
its completion, I only had one goal—to get it over with. Though this semester
began with the desire to simply get this course out of the way, I found myself
starting to develop other goals through-out the semester. I began to actually
take an interest in building my writing skills and learning as much as I could
in the time offered to me. As the course continued, I started seeing this class
as an opportunity; rather than a hassle.
What
first sparked my interest in this class were the reading materials assigned. I
actually enjoyed most of the readings and their messages, and found myself
developing my own interpretations of the readings. When I would take notes from
the readings, I’d use brackets to write my own thoughts on what was being said
in a sentence or two and creating a new message that was my own. For example, In Joel Westheimer’s “No Child
Left Thinking,” he says, “The kinds of goals and practices commonly represented
in curricula that hope to foster democratic citizenship usually have more to do
with voluntarism, charity, and obedience that with democracy.”
I responded to the issue of
obedience in my notes, like this: “(Obedience is the problem, listening to
authority figures without doubt and taking education at face-value rather than
the student deciphering their own understanding of a subject’s matter is what
crushes the ability to use critical thinking skills.)” By doing this, I believe
I was able to use these thoughts from my notes for my papers later-on. I also
think this helped me to build upon my critical-thinking skills. During the
readings, I started to develop the desire to take as much information from the
sources as possible to create an idea of my own to express in future papers. I
also found the peer review to be very helpful in this course when writing my
papers. While utilizing the peer reviews, I felt I had more of an opportunity
to get specific feedback for my essays. I appreciated knowing exactly what the
weaknesses were in my papers so I could go back and address those issues. To
me, receiving constructive criticism pushes me to be a better writer.
The
process of taking extensive notes, becoming interested in reading materials,
and participating in peer reviews, ultimately helped me to be a stronger writer
and utilize my critical thinking skills. My original goal was to just get
through this class; Now, I believe I met a more important goal, to be a
stronger writer.
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