“To what extent have I achieved the course learning outcomes this semester?” This semester, being the first of my many soon to come college years, has been extremely exciting. The newer atmosphere provided a simple reset compared to my high school career. This reset brought new beginnings as well as new challenges and experiences. With my first-year writing class this year, Leaders Who Changed the World, I have learned many things regarding leadership that have benefited my everyday life. This course rewarded me with the ability to adapt to new situations as my outlook on the world has changed. Abilities like identifying certain traits correlated with leadership styles. These traits often help when understanding a person’s character. The material presented gave us simple yet effective examples of utilizing certain leadership styles that can be seen in everyday life. As a writer, this semester I have learned a significant amount more that has improved my abilities further than before. For starters, understanding and acknowledging others, as well as my own, change of linguistic differences. Throughout our works, not everyone uses the same absolute language such as English. The dialect might differ if you come from other countries and speak different languages. You would have to use different words to convey your thoughts and ideas. By drawing on those resources, and developing a rhetorical sensibility, you can adapt to a different communication style. An example for me can be responses during our Blackboard discussions. Understanding that not everyone speaks the same as I do, I understood I must shift from one way of communicating to another. For instance, when replying to a classmate, “I liked that you stated being whole is being balanced as I had a similar response. Being whole definitely is a personal thing as every person has their own interpretation for example if it is mental and/or physical. What sacrifices do you mean comes with being a servant leader?” and another “I liked your difference of opinion in being able to teach a child empathy because you mentioned that some may never utilize empathy but wouldn’t it be difficult to express their feelings without understanding it completely? Also, I agree with your statement of different people can have different ways of viewing the term “whole”. These examples originate from a class discussion regarding servant leadership. It is important that we can adapt and change to communicate and understand others in terms of our linguistic differences. One of the main purposes of this class is to improve our writing abilities. Whether it involves setting our own goals or working with others. Understanding my growth in this class can be observed when looking at my work from the beginning of the class to now. For example, the Power Base Essay was one of our first major writing assignments. After receiving my grade and feedback from my professors, I understood I had to work on how I wrote as well as correct my errors. Errors such as introducing citations, comma splices, or just stand grammar errors. When I wrote the next major assignments like the Biographical Summary and Historical Overview, I made sure to address my previous errors and work on fixing them. I also tried new methods of writing, often planning out my work instead of writing on the spot. This allowed me to convey my ideas in an organized manner. This class involved many opportunities to collaborate with our peers like our early class discussions or our online discussions. During this time, we were able to discuss our work and understand the reasoning behind why some said what they said and what was meant by it. This collaboration benefited me as I was able to hear innovative ideas other than my own providing a broader perspective on topics that I may have not understood completely. One example can be the discussion for “Truth 6: Trust Rules”. Although my response may have sufficed, in my own opinion I do not believe I fully understood the topic. It was only after reading others’ posts that I was able to fully comprehend the central ideas of this topic. As an illustration, when responding to a classmate “I liked that you included an example of what approach could be used if a leader were to risk trusting his or her followers, it offers a clear view of how a d1 follower can be able to perform a task for a d4 follower. Using the situational approach is one of the few leadership styles that can be used in this scenario. It’s very interesting that you can put that amount of trust in your teacher after his past teachings. We have learned that trust builds better relationships and if he were to sabotage that relationship, he would not be a good leader, generally speaking.” My response to their work demonstrates my understanding after reading their work. Lastly, understanding different writing styles was particularly important in this class. Often, we had to read many different texts with different authors incorporating their writing styles. As students, it is our responsibility to understand and analyze what these styles are and how we can use them to benefit our work. By analyzing documents like Leadership: Theory and Practice, The Truth about Leadership: The No-Fads, Heart-of-The-Matter Facts You Need to Know, and His Excellency: George Washington. I was able to understand different writing styles which allowed me to better understand the text. The reason analyzing is so important is because it not only broadens your range of understanding texts but also helps you become more effective at communicating. To conclude, by assessing my work I can say there has been growth in writing, communication, and comprehension due to this class. I have achieved my desired outcomes in learning and hope to achieve more.  

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