Reflection

Reflection

      Throughout the entire semester in English 214 I have learned many important topics. This was my first semester with Ms. caitlin and I have to admit that it was an amazing class. Thanks to Caitlin I have managed to learn about invisible narratives, something that I had not learned or even heard about on my high school English classes. The activity that I enjoyed the most in this class was when all of us needed to go to the agree or disagree side. It was amazing how we all didn’t agree with a specific statement and we would always get engaged by giving out own opinions.

      When I read my diagnostic essay again this week I realized this semester went really fast. I noticed that it was our first paper for the semester and when I saw my other essays I realized that my writing had evolved a lot throughout the entire semester. I found that my belief was “Do not procrastinate. Try doing your best even if you think that you are not strong as the others”. Throughout the classes I have always kept this belief in my mind and I managed to improve more thanks to Caitlin and my peers. There were times that I procrastinated because I didn’t know what to write about in my essays. Even if it was a first draft, during peer reviews I would read my partners essays and I would always think that their essays were much better than mine. But my peers would always tell me that I did write well and that my essay was good, that made me feel that i wrote an okay essay. When the conferences with Caitlin came I was scared to see what she would tell me. And then I realized that I had been doing my essays well. Caitlin managed to push me more by advising me to give more analysis to my arguments and be more specific. And thanks to the advice I managed to improve my writing and as well to continue following my belief of doing the best I can even if I am not a good writer.

       Thinking about myself and my culture I can notice many invisible narratives. I think that the invisible narrative behind myself is inequality. I am different because I am not as racist as many white officers that think that they are the ones that have power in this country and that they can insult and kill anyone because of a different skin color or clothes. My Peruvian culture as well has the invisible narrative of inequality. I didn’t face it but my father did in his teenage years. He was born in the beautiful region of Iquitos and when he moved by himself for a better life to Lima, he sadly faced the bullying of many people because of his accent. This is the thing that gets me mad from my country because if you weren’t born in the capital of Lima then you will always be consider a minority for many people. This is what people that were born in Ayacucho, Cusco, etc have to face everyday. They are always being called “cholos”, “serranos”, “indigenas” and this has always made me feel mad. Even though I was born in the capital of Peru I had always shown respect to this kind of people but not because of where my father was born, mainly because we are all equal and we deserve to be treated equally don’t matter what part of the country you come from.

        During my upcoming semesters at SF State I will keep following my belief and try to do my best. This English 214 class has been amazing and I thank Caitlin for letting me know a lot about invisible narratives. I am pretty sure that everything I have learned in the class and the improvement I have made in my writings will definitely help me in the future.