Dear Reader,

Preparing for the in-class essay assignment went pretty smoothly. Knowing the prompts beforehand definitely helped, and it allowed me to prepare myself better. One thing I liked about this assignment was how I had the freedom to choose the story and prompt I would like to write about. The setting being in class put a lot of pressure on me, which is good. Hearing the sounds of typing and everyone being focused made me blend in with the environment. I don’t think I would’ve performed the same way being in my bedroom.

One thing that made this assignment different than what I did in high school was that everything was transparent and the subjects I was being tested for were presented to me. The timing was also a lot more lenient, which made me question whether high school testing was really about testing the student’s knowledge, or more on the student’s ability to concentrate and finish the test within the ridiculous timeframe. This made the testing experience go by a lot more smoothly for me, as I felt no pressure on “completing” the assignment, but just enough pressure for me to focus on crafting the best essay. I was able to prepare for my in-class literary assignment by creating an outline of the topics I would like to write about beforehand, which made everything feel a lot more organized at the time of the test.

Participating in the in-class discussion felt pretty disorganized. Something better my group (and the other groups) could’ve done was to establish the order of who speaks, instead of making the conversation go by the flow. I knew that some people had a lot of things they wanted to say, but were afraid to “cut off” someone who was speaking, or just simply not sure how they could insert themselves into the conversation. I also observed certain people speaking only once, and the rest of the conversation was led by just two people in the group. This could have been easily solved if the group had planned how to direct the conversation in a more organized manner in the future, which is also what I believe our group would’ve benefitted from. Other than that, every one put in a great amount of effort preparing for the discussion and engaging in the group discussion. The group discussion prepared me for the in-class essay because hearing everyone’s different opinions and different questions allowed my brain to think outside the box.

Regarding my writing for the future, I hope to get used to writing in environments beyond the classroom setting. I find that I have issues getting started on tasks when I’m in a comfortable environment, such as my home. I hope to find ways to “lock in” and just enter that “hyperfocus” mode more easily alone. For the past essay assignments I’ve written for the class, they were mostly done the day before it was due since the deadline was my only reason for getting started. Crafting the outline for my essays beforehand has always been helpful for me as I always have everything laid out and organized. I will continue crafting outlines and finding new techniques to help me improve my writing skills.