At the end of every semester of English class, we will all be requested to complete a reflection essay, namely, to make a summary to what I have learned and experienced throughout the whole semester of classes. Like programs or organization activities, a retrospect is requisite. So, reflective writing is very useful and powerful because, first, it forces you to recollect the important skills or tips that would help you to reinforce your achievement; the second, it is the best way of self-knowledge and self-expressing. In the course of English 21001, the main object of our study is New York City, we studied it from in at least three disciplinary perspectives, writing, reading, and experiencing. The course theme is gentrification, the change in trends or conditions in New York City, for example, how did a grocery become a Chinses restaurant. We learned to open up and expose the inner workings of writing and learned to bring up opinions on different things and objects.

In this semester, I accomplished the essay of my one-week attention at my neighborhood which is a typical place for Chinese residence. I observed the overall environment in my neighborhood and the favorite spot that I would like to go. Also, I talked about the observation of strangers on the subway, and the luckiest thing I had in this week. The assignment I liked the best is the interview one. I interviewed a theatre director through email by voice recording, and I really enjoyed the process of typing out her words, highlighting the important pieces, managing and organizing these materials to become a profile for her. Additionally, I also shared a New York experience in one of the assignments, it was an experience of hanging out with a friend to a gay bar in Hell’s kitchen.

In this semester, I read 6 articles about New York City and the experiences from the authors. They are Whitehead’s “City Limits”, Patti Smith’s “Just Kid”, Stanley Milgram’s “The Experience of Living in Cities”, Gornick’s “On The Street”, and Gladwell’s “Tipping Point”. And a multiple chapter report of a homeless family, “The Invisible Child”. I read serval things and people from “On The Street” and combining it with my daily experience, the author talks about people of every description he has come across on the streets of New York, and it is very interesting and I liked it. Thousands of people have a thousand version of scenes. I have the same feeling to these street people like the author. I love the streets in New York. They are so amazing that who knows what kind of people would appear on them. Walking down the street, the only thing I do the most is watching people around me, people beside me, people passing by me, and people, and people. It is all about people. No matter what they are going to happen something to me or not, I am happy with it.

Professor Gina prepared many in-class informal writing exercises for us, such as the topic of what does your neighbor look like, what do you even overhead, what do you wish people know about you and so on. Sometimes it was hard for me to come up with some good words for them, in writing, I always have to brew and thinking about how to organize. And for the discussing part, I also enjoyed the whole process, because, without the careful guidance of Professor Gina, we could not keep on successfully. In my view, the difference of writing experience between high school and college is the writing process becomes freer and opener in college. The most important thing is, you can have your own opinions and perspectives only if you could back them up with ample evidence.

Personal speaking, there are still a lot of spaces for improvement for my writing. This is why I would choose English class every semester. If you have put efforts in it, you shall be aware that writing is fun. Writing is a process of accomplishing, it has the same trait with drawing, building, or cooking etc. For the reason that we see it growing and developing under our control until it becomes a whole, a complete work. I didn’t use to be very good at English, so it is more “All you can do is try to not be so crap at English”. Because you need English, really, if you want to be a bank worker or a filmmaker. If you want to be anything in the future in the United States. You need English, and keep on it. After all, I really appreciate my hardworking to stick to accomplishing these assignments and doing the various practice of in-class writing with the guidance of my professor, and all the effort I put into writing.

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