Semester Reflection

1. Include the link to your blog here: https://sumyiucollegewriting.poetry.blog/

2. Which of your pieces most helped you identify or explore and develop your God-given abilities? Discuss. 

I think the piece that best helped me identify and develop my God-given abilities was definitely the credo. I’m not exceptionally good at public speaking but God still gave me the ability to speak and communicate. I think the credo really pushed me to go outside of my comfort zone in terms of not only simply sharing an embarrassing story, but also doing it through speaking in front of the entire class under a strict time limit. The assignment forced me to develop my own public speaking skills through lots of practice. Although I still wouldn’t consider myself a good public speaker, I think that this really showed me that God has given me the capability to speak, make people laugh, and still get a message across, and this gave me an opportunity to work on that. 

3. Which of your pieces best demonstrates your ability to communicate effectively? Give three reasons and explain. 

I think my research essay about religious freedom in China best demonstrated my ability to communicate effectively. Although there are definitely areas of improvement, I believe that this piece best demonstrated my ability to communicate effectively firstly because of how it was organized. I organized it in a way that set out my point very clearly in a thesis statement and then had three body paragraphs dedicated to each of my points. Secondly, I think that I communicated effectively because I was able to very clearly show the reader where I’m getting my information, whether through just simple formatting or in-text citations or even my final works cited page. Lastly, I think it demonstrated my ability to communicate effectively just through my brainstorming. I spent large amounts of time trying to organize and make coherent thoughts from my large amounts of research in hopes that I could write a clearly organized and good paper that was able to effectively communicate exactly what I wanted to say. 

4. Which piece either demonstrates striving for excellence, or discusses striving for excellence and its importance in another area besides writing? Explain. 

I think the piece that best demonstrated striving for excellence was my short story (with a twist). This is because I worked very hard for the short story as I was determined to perfect it, not only in terms of the writing itself and simple things like grammar, but also in terms of the plot and the storyline. I really wanted to make the story special, surprising, and also unique, and I went through many ideas to finally choose this one. I spent lots of time trying to make it as excellent I could possibly make it, and so I think that my short story best demonstrated my strive for excellence. 

5. Which of your pieces explores why it is important to act as a responsible member of the global community? Explain. 

I think my Kite Runner final essay about the truth best explored why it was important to act as a responsible member of the global community. This is because I talked about why truth is so important in our society. Telling the truth, or valuing the truth, is part of being a responsible member of the global community, and in that essay I discuss the consequences of failing to do that and the benefits of being able to hold that up, which points to why telling/valuing the truth is important in our community. 

6. How did this course help you to know, understand, and apply biblical principles? Explain, giving specific examples. 

I think this ESLR was a really big part of this semester since we were constantly challenged with prompts about racism, truth, prejudice, and moral dilemmas. Throughout our conversations about racism both from The Kite Runner and from the Merchant of Venice, I was challenged to really look into the Bible to see what God says about these things and be able to back my essays up with biblical principles. I think I was especially challenged when we were discussing whether the orphanage director in The Kite Runner did the right thing or not. A biblical principle is relying on God, and I think discussing dilemmas like this one helped us really think about what the Bible says, and in light of that, decide what is right and wrong. 

7. How did this course help you to think independently, creatively, and analytically? Explain. 

This course challenged me in all three of these aspects. Not only is writing usually independent (in terms of the rough drafts), but I am also pushed creatively to come up with unique and interesting ideas for stories or even research essays. The best example I can think of where I was pushed creatively was the short story, because it took me a really long time to come up with a good idea. I also was pushed to analyze my research in order to properly organize my information into paragraphs that could effectively convince the reader to believe in what I believe in, especially for my research essay at the beginning of the semester and the truth essay at the end.