Odai Aalloh
April 29, 2014
English 101
Reflective
Letter #2
English 101 is one of the classes
that I was worried to take in the beginning of the semester. Because I’m not
good at writing research papers and essays. But after several weeks my opinion
totally changed about the class especially after I met Dr. Usree Bhattacharya.
Dr. Bhattacharya made the class more understandable and easier for me. This class
is a very interesting class and it definitely helped me develop my writing and
reading skills.
In the beginning of the
semester I was worried that I could not survive this class due to my writing
style. My writing style is more as casual (not formal). I had troubles writing in
formal ways or choose the academic words in writing my paper. But, this class
helped me write more in a formal way and reading helped me know more academic
words. I think I did well in the first essay because the topic was easy for me (literacy
autobiography). In the research paper Dr. Usree helped me pick an interesting topic
for me (Hollywood and Globalization) that I can write about.
Dr. Usree Bhattacharya is the best teacher I had
so far in IUP. Her teaching style is very nice and humble. She helps all the
students if they need any help. She give her best to make everything so clear
and understandable for us. I want to thank her for being an awesome teacher for
me for recommending me to start writing a diary. I hope I can take another
class with her.
Also
the materials that Dr. Bhattacharya used in class were very helpful. The book that
we used in class was my guide all the way in writing my research paper. It helped
me know how to write in APA style and cite all my sources in a perfect way. Citation
was my biggest problem but, the book really helped me many times when I needed
help in writing the citation for all the quotations that I used.
Another thing I also liked was
working with my classmates in class. I liked when me and my classmates worked
together and give peer review for each other’s papers. That was helpful for me
to see some parts of my paper that I need to develop. Also learn how my classmates
from other cultures write differently than I do in my culture. I’m thankful for
Dr. Usree and Mariah who was willing to help anyone in the class, and thanks to
all my classmates for being nice to me and helped me learn in this class.
The writing center is a helpful way
to develop and check my paper. It helped me a lot to correct and check my misspelling
and grammar mistakes. The tutors in the writing center were nice and helpful. They
helped me do my citation in a correct way and checked my paper for writing an
APA style. They also do workshops for teaching APA and MLA styles in writing
and how to do a correct citation for each style.
They are also available in good
times that all the students could have a chance and go there to check their
papers. They also help checking the student’s paper online. And they have night
times for the students who work at night. I always go to their main building in
the Eicher building to check my paper. I usually have problems in grammar and misspelling
words or my paper is not in order. But mostly my problem is writing a conclusion.
My conclusion is always like the dinosaur’s tale. I try to write anything at
the end of my paper, that is why I go to the writing center to check my
conclusion.
One
thing that I didn’t like was waiting for the tutor to come and check my paper. I
was waiting for almost an hour for a tutor to come and help me. The problem is
that the writing center was not crowded and there were many tutors sitting and
chatting with each other. And I went more than three times to write my name and
they deleted it. I hope they pay more attention to the students who are sitting
in the writing center waiting for their help.
