Week: 2
Prompt: What kind of self-reflection experiences did you have in your freshman English class? What have you learned (related to self-reflection or writing in general) that has stayed with you and supported your writing?
During my freshman English class, I did not do much self-reflection as most of the work review that we did was based on peer review. We would go over each other’s work and provide each other with feedback regarding the areas in which we need improvement. Although I had not been so exposed to self-reflection, I am familiar with reviewing my own work by making sure my spelling and grammar are good, and repetitiveness. However, I do believe that I need to improve in other areas of self-reflection that I hope to learn during this course. My work tends to be missing certain requirements from the criteria or simple expectations from the professor, so I hope that through practicing proper self-reflection I can catch these flaws sooner to improve the quality of my writing.
Week: 3
Prompt: Analyze the rhetorical situation of your Freshman Portfolio. For those few students who do not have one only: Analyze the rhetorical situation of your Freshman English research paper/project.
My freshman portfolio is a composition of the several assignments I completed throughout my freshman English class. It contains the final product of each assignment, not including any peer review or discussion I was involved in with classmates. The purpose of my Freshman Portfolio is to act as a place to store and display my writing skills and the way in which I interacted with the strategies I gained during that class. This exposition of works is posted and available for individuals to view and review work that I have done either for personal interest or to widen their creativity in the case that they are involved in similar assignments.
Week: 5
Prompt: Analyze the rhetorical situation of your Product Review essay.
For the product review essay, we are being asked to choose a product that we have personal experience with that will allow us to appropriately and accurately provide an honest detailed review of the qualities of the product. Not only are we emphasizing the set of criteria that make the product an effective one, but also the company from which the product originates. The main purpose of this essay is to improve our understanding of criteria and how we can properly apply these specific criteria to create a reliable source of information for anyone searching to obtain the same product. I am taking a stand throughout this essay to reinforce my claim that my product is an effective and beneficial one, while also providing evidence and personal experience to support my claims.
Week: 6-7
Prompt: What have we done so far that has been helpful to your writing process? How might you apply this helpful information or tool? What would you like to spend more time on? If the clarification/additional focus does not occur during class time, how will you acquire the knowledge?
At the stage that we are in this course I have found some practices very helpful such as peer review sessions and the self-reflection memo. The peer review sessions have allowed me to gain a better understanding of the flaws in my writing as the different perspectives from others tend to always be different from one another. Through the self-reflection memo, I have been able to look at my own work with more detail allowing me to allocate these flaws whether they be a lack of analysis, a lack of information, or missing a complete section of the criteria. By using this new knowledge of analysis, I plan on spending more time reviewing my own work more thoroughly to ensure that I have covered every point necessary to satisfy the criteria of the assignment. This does not mean I won’t be open to any criticism any longer, but I would like my feedback to be ideas on what I could add to my writing or the things I could emphasize more rather than missing parts of the required material.
Week: 8
Prompt: How are you doing with time management? Are you balancing the multiple needs of this course? Your other courses? Are you making time for reading, writing, studying, and collaborating? Explain how if yes or share your success planning.
I would say that I am not doing so well when it comes to time management hence why some of my work has been submitted a bit late from the official due date. I have been trying to balance the writing and reading requirements of this class along with the other material I need to cover for my other classes. I will say that I have been prioritizing some classes more than others, but that is for my personal goals, at the end of the day everyone is dealing with different situations. However, I am still putting all my effort towards the assignments that are a part of this course even if it means submitting it a few hours late, I am trying my best to keep up the quality of my writing while also being involved in group or class discussions on Blackboard. I plan on improving my pace in each of my classes so that I can provide the same quality of work while meeting requirements such as deadlines.
Week: 9
Prompt: After you have received feedback on your essay: Analyze the rhetorical situation of your Lab Report Analysis essay. Include textual detail to support your claims.
The lab report analysis essay requires us to find three research reports of our choice that cover a topic of our choice as long as they meet a certain structure that includes a procedures section. After receiving feedback from my professor regarding my essay, she pointed some areas in which I could improve on. I was informed that I had more than enough analysis but unfortunately, I was still missing the necessary evidence to support my claims regarding how effective the essays were at covering certain criteria that made it an effective research report. While I was able to fully analyze and explain in detail the reasons why I found certain areas effective, I still needed to connect my claims with the criteria that create an effective research report with the contents of each of the reports therefore completing my claims and creating an effective piece of analysis.
Week: 10
Prompt: What experience have you had working in groups before this class? How has the group work we’ve done in this class been for you? What are you doing/will you do to optimize your experience completing the collaborative project for this class?
Apart from coming from a CTE high school where teamwork and communication are essential for every single class project, I have some more experience working in groups coming from my freshmen English class which was Writing for the Sciences. I have also had additional group work experience from my theater class which involved more physical and verbal work than writing. As for the work we have done within this class, I have learned from the writing style of others since some people tend to have a wider vocabulary or others are great at analysis. Along with the peer review, we have also performed in class I have gotten better at providing quality feedback to my classmates thanks to the several analysis and feedback techniques we have discussed in class to provide proper and professional feedback.
Week: 11
Prompt: Analyze the rhetorical situation of your Technical Description. Include textual detail to support your claims.
The technical description required us to find an item from our household that contained at least more than ten components that completed its structure. Through this, we would break the item apart in order to identify and describe each aspect from the outer to the inner structure. The hardest part was probably finding something easy to break down that would still allow you to create a detail description good enough to create an essay out of it. The main purpose of this assignment is to widen our skills of analysis and evaluation through basic observations and some research that would allow us to explain each component in further detail. A main part of this assignment is the inclusion of the history of the item being analyzed. By presenting its history, we can demonstrate the different ways in which this innovation has evolved through time and how our own experiences with it allow us to create our own detailed description of the item. In order for this assignment to be flawless, careful analysis and detailed description are required as we must cover every single detail about it from the simple color of the overall item all the way to what inner parts allow it to function the way that it does.
Week: 13
Prompt: Select one learning objective or one component of a learning objective. When, where, and how have you learned it? How have you developed in this arena?
The one component of a learning objective that I have learned the most throughout this course was enhancing strategies for revising. I have been improving and learning the strategies of revising since the first peer review discussion we had in class. Peer review has allowed me to view my writing pieces from a completely different perspective that enhances the way in which I revise my work. Using the feedback I received I am able to review my work again and identify the flaws in my writing piece guided by the feedback from my peers. Being able to identify and revise my work with the help of different perspectives has allowed me to develop new habits and skills for reviewing my writing pieces and confirming that every component of the criteria is met and completed.
Week: 14
Prompt: What have you learned that has proved most useful to your composition process?
What I have learned that has proved the most useful in my composition process is the careful analysis of criteria as well as the overall analysis of the claims I make in my assignments. Most of the feedback I have received during the semester has been related to my lack of analysis, whether it be analysis of the claims I create like in the product review essay or in my lab analysis essay as I lack evidence to support the claims I had made about each report. Taking in all of this feedback and reflecting on the several mistakes I committed in my writing led me to reconsider the way in which I analyze the texts I read and the way I analyze my own claims so as to provide my audience with a less vague version of the analysis. I tend to continue improving my analysis skills to further improve my composition process and thanks to the outcomes of this course I gained new strategies to explain the components of a text and evidence.
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