Perhaps the most important part of reflecting on your writing is to spend time critically reading your own writing.
With the work you did on the previous page in mind (i.e., goals for writing and values about writing), take some time to read through your previous writing, namely:
- Reading Responses
- Process Writing homework submitted on Blackboard and Discord
- Learning Module responses
- Literacy and Numeracy Narrative
- Data Set Biography and Influence Project (Half-Draft and First Draft)
- Data-Driven White Paper (Half-Draft, First Draft, Second Draft)
- Data Visualization Revision
- Campaign for Circulation Project (in-progress)
- Writing from other classes
As you read through your writing, consider these two pages called “Check-in about Reading Annotations and Learning Module” on the 2-8-2021 Lesson Plan and from the Reading Annotation Guidelines to think about how to make effective notes when reading that get more toward the “how” and “why” of things you read rather than just “what” you read.
In the case of reading your own writing to reflect on what you learned, you are looking for how you are doing things in your writing (e.g., at level of argument, organization, sentence, word choice, etc.) as well as why (e.g., to have reader linger on something, to provide a counterargument, etc.).
Consider, too, comments you got from your peers and from me.
You may not have time to read thoroughly now, but by the time you submit your Final Reflection, you would have read through everything you wrote very thoroughly.
Task
In a comment below, tell me about one thing you noticed that confirmed one of the goals you commented on the previous page of the module and one thing that maybe was a little surprising that you did not mention on the last page of the module.
After commenting below, click the button to continue the module.
I noticed in my data driven white paper, that focusing on communicating data in an effective way was an important focus for me. It became especially clear since I was trying to pull together multiple forms of research and prove a point, or convince a body of decision makers something.
I noticed how hard it actually is to pull together other peoples research and create a convincing paper. I think that sometimes I could use better language that is more convincing. Examples like comparisons, and regurgitating large amounts of information in a few small sentences. I found that I could continue to work on those skills as they help make me a better writer.
From my previous respond, I noticed that thinking outside the box and looking for data that is representative for my argument was really important to me.
For instance, while doing research on the topic of my white paper I struggled to use the data strongly to proof my argument. But through several revisions, I realized that I needed to think outside the box, be more creative and really analyze deeper what the data meant. I found that using amplification was a really good way to make a stronger argument, so with this in mind, I looked for data that were stronger for my paper and I was able to choose the ones that were the most favorable in convincing my point.
I noticed in my half draft for the Literacy and Numeracy assignment I did receive feedback to elaborate more on some of the things I was saying and then on the next assignment, the Data Set Biography, I expanded more on everything I was saying and it ended up being one of the assignments that I am most proud of. I think my organization was really good in that paper, I think I was compelling and I made good points for my argument.
I noticed that “Process Writing homework submitted on Blackboard and Discord” such as writing Proposals is a way to help me speak up my initial ideas and the very first thoughts before I started on any assignments and it gives me some early feedback and comments about what I need to do, what I should add to my writing, what I can fix, etc – anything that can be done to improve my writings. From that, I noticed what my strengths are to expand more and so what my weaknesses are I can moderate.
In my white paper, I noticed that I was missing out on the importance of visual content. I tried harder on writing and proving my claim but did not put any effort on making the paper readable and creative. Now I realized the importance of pictures and diagrams on a paper which helps to makes the paper interesting and easy to understand the idea before reading the actual sentences. I follow the feedback and changed the complete formate of my white paper which was a great learning experience.
Data-Visualization Revision made me think about my progress and how I cope with different difficulties through the process of writing the paper. The retrospective of my papers made me realized the importance of proof reading, the connection between one idea and another one, and how a graph can really help the understanding of an entire paper. Feedbacks are very important, without proper corrections my paper would not be good as it is now.
My Data- Visualization Revision feedback and reading guidance helped me expand more information and ideas on what was needed for my paper. It gave me a better understanding of focusing on one topic and not getting lost with too many visuals to represent the objective. At the end of the process, I thought about how we started from just drafts and then how challenging it was to clearly communicate ideas to the White Paper writings.
I appreciated most the feedback extremely detailed and helped me go back into my work and take time to edit and review/rethink my process. My data driven paper there was a lot of aspects that guided me to make improvements i spent a lot of time finding graphics/editing learning different program but i need to make sure all the writing is legible and clear because i want to expand more into my writing but had limited space so i needed to find ways to still apply the graphics supporting my theme while still providing more in depth information, supporting evidence, reports and resources.
I see after the helpful feedback given through my white paper that I definitely could organize better. The use of subheadings and bullet points could really structure and organize my paper better and that’s what I aim to do. I also should cite my sources better instead of just having links in parentheses. I should also connect my ideas more together and not have them all over the place.
I notice that the Process Writing Assignments would help me initiate the idea and start the preparation for the later draft. It would work as a planner for me to break up a writing assignment into pieces so that it is less challenging. In addition, the feedback on the Process Writing would alert me to my mistakes at the early stage.
The Data-Driven White Paper is the assignment, which I have learned a lot. It gives me a chance to practice how to develop connections among articles with a data set. Although it is hard to bring articles together, the reader would discover something relative from articles if he/she spent enough effort.
Feedback from my data driven assignments has been helpful. Some of the useful takeaways are: 1. Be concise. 2. Logic is good but use more data to reinforce positions. 3. Think creatively on how to make visuals more appealing to grab the attention of the reader. 4. Address and acknowledge counter arguments.
In the previous section I spoke about the learning modules keeping us on track by detailing our goals and our plan. We also reflected on our findings online as far as articles to use and data and images. I learned that a lot of us had similar ideas at the beginning of the semester when we were searching for data and articles and topics to write about.