Final Reflections and Blog Post

This document contains two reflective blog posts. The first post discusses the phobia associated with essay writing and strategies to overcome it. The second post reflects on the importance of reading works of fiction and its impact on critical and creative thinking. The author also shares their plan to improve their reading and writing skills.

Running head: FINAL REFLECTIONS AND BLOG POST
Final Reflections and Blog Post
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1FINAL REFLECTIONS AND BLOG POST
Reflective Post 1 – On the Phobia associated with Essay Writing
Writing essays is something that people are known to love to do a lot, but when it comes
to me however, essays are something that always terrify me. I am scared of words, and of
weaving words and if someone asks me to put pen to paper and state my thoughts, then I would
not know how to do so. Hence I have a phobia when it comes to writing in general. I have always
had this phobia since my childhood. I was never a good student in school and when it came to
activities such as essay writing, I would often have to take help from my friends and peers. I
would need their help and support in order to be able to write well. I could never do so on my
own. One of the main reasons why I am not so proficient in essay writing and in essay writing in
English at that, is the fact that I come from a family background where people do not
communicate in English much. Hence I never really got the opportunity to develop a vocabulary
in English in my growing up years. It is important to remember for any and every person looking
to improve essay writing skills, including for myself, that in order to be able to write well, one
has to first read a lot. Since my writing skills are not good and since there is a genuine fear that I
experience when it comes to something such as writing an essay in English, I feel that one of the
ways by which I can overcome this fear is my reading books in English. I believe the more I
read, the more vocabulary I will learn, and the more vocabulary I learn, the better I will be able
to write. Reading is the key to good writing in my opinion, which is why one of the immediate
steps that I am going to take in order to improve my essay writing skills is to start reading
voraciously. Once I master the art and the skill of reading, I am confident that I will be able to
gain the language and the writing skills that are needed to ultimately produce an essay, that, upon
reading it, is regarded to be a good piece of work.

2FINAL REFLECTIONS AND BLOG POST
The phobia of essay writing is also something that I feel can be overcome through
physical exercise. While this may seem strange, this is actually not so. The more we exercise and
the more we expose ourselves to nature, the more we give ourselves the opportunity to stimulate
our brains. Essay writing is a unique ability and if I take recourse to physical activities such as
walking and exercising on a regular basis, I will be able to stimulate by brain cells quite a bit and
in the process, I will be able to come up with good ideas that are needed for essay writing.
Finally, I believe firmly that taking help from the internet can go a long way in improving
skills in the art of essay writing. The more we browse the internet and look at the tips and
suggestions that are given online for good essay writing, the more we can hope to learn about
what essay writing entails and how we should engage in it in the best possible way. The internet
contains useful guidance that is provided by experts in essay writing on the tips and the
suggestions that need to be kept in mind in order to write a good essay. The internet has plenty of
information that people need to learn about essay writing and there are also samples that one can
look at, in order to get a good idea of what a well written essay looks like.
In the ultimate analysis though, I feel that good writing skills can be developed only if we
read a lot and develop a good vocabulary for ourselves. Reading is essentially the most important
thing that I need to engage in so as to overcome my phobia on essay writing. I am going to start
by choosing some easy and interesting books to read in English, and once I have been able to
read these well enough, I will proceed to books where the English is of a slightly more difficult
standard, learning good words and phrases that I can put to use when writing an essay, in the
process.
Post 2 – Reflections on Expanded Argument from Fiction

3FINAL REFLECTIONS AND BLOG POST
Reading fiction is something that we need to learn to do for our own wellbeing. This is
because we really end up opening our minds when we read, and when we read works of fiction,
we get to stretch our imagination by a considerable extent. I for one am not fond of reading at all,
which is why my writing and reading skills in class are not up to the mark. However, I have read
one or two works of fiction and I can honestly admit that doing so has been a good experience. A
work of fiction is one that transports us to a different world altogether. When we indulge
ourselves in a work of fiction we get to put our imagination to good use, imagining about a world
and people who we would never think possible to exist. Reading works of fiction in my view
have an important role to play in getting us to think both critically as well as creatively. A
creative bent of mind is something that is definitely developed when one decides to read works
of fiction. The more fiction we read, the more aware we become of our creative abilities and then
these creative abilities we can put to the test in turn, through writing.
It is important to remember that not all works of fiction are those that are entirely
imaginary in their nature and scope. There is a genre known as semi fiction that combines real
life events with fictitious tales, creating something that is quite remarkable to read in the process.
A work of fiction and a work of semi fiction are not too different from one another, excepting
that the latter informs us more about the real world and real life events compared to the former,
since it is based on real events and real people in the first place. There are expanded arguments
from fiction that we can put to the test in the real life we experiences that we go through. The
more I experience life’s events, the more I realize how relevant reading works of fiction is. In
fact, to some extent I feel that fiction is highly underrated. People take recourse to the reading of
fiction if they need to relax and unwind when in truth, people should be reading fiction in order
to gain greater knowledge about life. Works of fiction are known as literary works, and these are

4FINAL REFLECTIONS AND BLOG POST
based on human experiences and human emotions. Everything that an individual is seen to go
through in his life is something that gets reflected in a work of fiction, be it an experience of
heart break, the death of a loved one, or the experience of tragedy.
In order to be able to understand literary arguments better, I need to make a greater effort
to read works of fiction. I will be entirely honest and admit that I have been trying to do this for
the longest span of time but have not been too successful in doing so. I am going to make an
effort by first signing up for a membership at a library in the city where I reside. Being a member
of a library will give me access to hundreds of books which are not only interesting to read but
which are easy to read as well. I can also save a lot of money on the purchase of books if I decide
to read at a library. The fact that a library allows us to borrow a book and keep this book with us
for three days at least is also something great. I am going to make a concerted effort to
understand arguments from fiction better by reading more works of fiction and this I will do by
signing up for a library membership. I feel that this is not going to be an easy thing to do and
there are times when I am going to get terribly bored. For a person who has not been fond of
reading and who is not too ecstatic about having to read either, it will at the beginning be a
painful task to read through the pages of a book. However, in course of time, I believe I can
overcome the challenge of reading and writing that I am faced with right now, and be a good
reader and writer of fiction perhaps too, someday.