Shahna Shajnin
Professor Colombo Russell
ENG 110: Freshman Composition
December 4 2025

Final Reflection

Through this semester, I have learned how to assess changes made to my writing with AI. Initially, I was hesitant about using AI as a means of checking my grammar, because I felt that AI would result in inaccuracies and unnecessary edits to my writing. Therefore, I typically don’t use AI to check grammar, but I may use it to give me general ideas to jumpstart my writing process. In class, we implemented the use of Grammarly and ChatGPT to get immediate feedback on our Language and Literacy narrative. In my opinion, Grammarly’s suggestions were less helpful and continued to flag my writing unnecessarily, merely to change phrasing into more “robotic-sounding” phrases. However, ChatGPT provided both a standardized English version of my essay along with explanations for grammar corrections. Both uses required me to gauge whether or not the suggestion would change my intended tone and meaning as well as if it continues to maintain diverse language, rather than repetitive phrases. One challenge I faced while using AI to check my grammar was the tendency to accept all suggestions without thought. At times, I needed to take a step back and think carefully about how the suggested change would affect my written work. This experience was new for me, and I had a particularly positive experience with ChatGPT. In the future, I would definitely utilize ChatGPT as a grammar check.

In addition, I have learned that written expression can be transformed into different forms, such as visual and auditory presentations. At the start of the semester, we were challenged to create a different form of media with our Language and Literacy narrative. I quickly realized the assignment required me to think about my writing in a new light. Specifically, I had to convert my piece into a form that would appeal to my audience and incorporate aspects like memes and images to make the presentation interesting. Despite the simplicity of the assignment, I struggled to be creative with it. When we got assigned another “translation” project for the Synthesis essay, I found it easier to create a piece that relates to my written work. Personally, I feel that the initial exposure through the translation 1 project helped me feel more comfortable with the second translation project. For both translation projects, I had to consider my audience heavily and that guided how I organized each one. Although I still prefer traditional writing, the translation projects opened my eyes to the distinct ways you can convert writing and incorporate multimedia aspects. 

Furthermore, I have further developed my ability to combine sources into a written work. Specifically, the Synthesis essay relied on finding appropriate sources and being able to relate their ideas to one another clearly. This required a lot of time and patience, as I had to file through plausible sources while finding relationships between the information in each. I primarily relied on research articles because they tended to share similar ideas from distinct perspectives. I also relied on the worksheet we did in class, where we found sources and categorized them based on the kind of source they were (such as peer-reviewed articles, non-scholarly sources, and multimedia sources). I typically don’t use organizational worksheets like these, but I found that it helped me organize my ideas more. Through this method, I was able to go through the articles and find snippets that were relevant to my paper and begin connecting them with my own conclusions. Once I started, it became a little simpler to continue forming connections between articles. I hope to take these skills I learned in regards to combining sources into the future as well.

Lastly, I have developed my creative writing skills, especially through a retelling of my own experiences. From the initial assignment of the Language and Literacy Narrative, I was able to address my own experience with language without constraints in terms of my grammar, language, and tone. Instead, I had creative will with my essay and had the ability to expand on a minor life experience in a meaningful way. During this assignment, I particularly enjoyed implementing sensory details into my essay, because it made my writing feel more “in the moment,” rather than merely reading a plain experience. In addition, I incorporated my own native language into the essay, which made the piece feel more personal to me. Through these aspects, I have had the chance to experiment with a new writing style that I normally would stray away from. Overall, having the chance to write creatively has taught me how to adapt my writing depending on the context and understand what techniques work better when writing academically versus creatively.