English Reflective Essay

There is no coincidence in life’s events: everything happens without sometimes knowing why it happens. This semester of college has been the hardest one yet for me, in and outside of my English class. Then again, I have been able to challenge myself in the topic I find most difficult than all other topics: English. Throughout my semester in English, I have learned the all-new essay format, Chicago Manual of Style, process more connections between any ideas, and I have learned to dissect any form of reading to reflect/ponder on it to get a deeper, meaningful understanding. On the basis of chronological order, what I learned first through practice in class is dissecting any story. At the beginning of the semester, we started off with double-entry

I was able to develop this skill when I wrote my history paper on Frederick Douglass’ speech on what the black man wants and the speech of Ralph Bunches 84 years later in an African-American graduation. I took this paper step-by-step underlining and highlighting main ideas in both speeches to better understand if their philosophies were the same. At first, it was a struggle highlighting main points, pondering on each, and comparing them because it involved plenty of time, and more than anything, consistency. However, as I practiced it in my daily life, I learned to make connections with even some of the weirdest things. I later learned that it is through connections that one finds a solution to problems by better understanding how the problem came to be. I started this process of connections by analyzing the behavior of those around me, and then comparing people and figuring out if their ideologies came from their surroundings (books, television, propaganda, etc.) and if they were the same way. This started becoming a habit I developed, which is not criticism- but instead being more aware. This is an important skill I realized later on, which made every time meaningful with purpose. Never in my life did I hear of the Chicago Manual of Style. I learned about this form of writing during the history paper- the history paper brought a lot of learning about the rules and format of it. The only difficult thing about this was getting the footnotes on the bottom of the