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), take some time to read through your previous writing, namely:
- QSRs 1, 2, 3, and 4
- Literacy Narrative 1
- Literacy Narrative Revision
- Rhetorical Analysis Draft 1
- Rhetorical Analysis Draft 2
- Research-Driven Writing Project Draft 1
- Writing from other classes
You an also consider Reading Annotations and Process Documents, as these were essential supplementary writing that assisted the larger writing assignments you completed.
As you read through your writing, consider tips for reading annotations from 9/1 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 Writing Group and from me!
You may not have time to read thoroughly now, but by the time you submit your ELD, you would have read through everything you wrote very thoroughly.
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.
One thing that confirmed one of my goals from the previous page was the fact that I actively refer to my writing schedule and do my best to adhere to make sure that I am spending enough time to work on each assignment and give it the time it needs.
One thing that I am suprised that I did not mention was how I tried to end the fluff that I would often add to my assignments to make up for a word count. This was something that was a huge struggle and I have worked hard to limit myself in my future assignments.
One thing I noticed that confirmed one of my goals on the previous page is that my research paper had better cohesion than the first draft of my rhetorical analysis. I think this proves that I have moved towards my goal to connect my evidence and analyses to my thesis.
One thing that I found surprising is my ability to synthesize my sources. For my research paper, I felt confident about my ability to obtain credible and relatable sources that build on to my thesis.
One thing that confirmed my goals were the comments left on my previous paper. I got a decent grade and comments that explained how my writing improved, and how the assignment I submitted was well thought out/ completed properly. I was surprised by how my writing came out. I did not expect to improve as much as I did by just following the prompts and adhering to my goals.
The most recent example is my rhetorical analysis draft 2. In draft 1, my thesis was kind of hidden somewhere in the paragraph. But after reviewing Mr. Libertz’s feedback, I made a more explicit and clear thesis that effectively connected the rest of the paragraphs to it.
One thing that I have confirmed from one of my goals is that my thesis for the research-driven writing was more descriptive of the topic that I was discussing as the feedback was positive. One thing I found surprising is that I did not utilize sources as required under APA citation rules. This is probably because most of my writing has been in MLA.
One thing that confirmed one of my goals was that I developed my writing process before writing the Research Essay. I sat down outlined my essay and found important info in my sources that I could potentially use. This helped me write my essay much more effectively. Another thing that was surprising was that also in the Research paper I was able to use a wider variety of sentence choice to prove my point.
One thing that can confirm one of my goals is that I am aware of the audience and purpose when writing. I would say this last paper, I tried to choose a structure that would best benefit to who I was writing to and for what reason.
One thing I found surprising was that I felt I did a good job in analyzing sources and relating them to my thesis.
One thing that confirmed my goal of reading to learn was the comments you gave me for what I did well. You said my essay was well driven by my main question, which was contextualized with strong evidence. This was the result of me constantly going back to my main question and asking other smaller questions to help answer my main question. One surprising thing in my research essay was that I used fewer sources for my in-text citations than I expected. While I had lots of different sources, I relied on some much more than others.
1. You gave me a hint on the Rhetorical Analysis to consider moving my section comparing lyrical themes between different songs in the band’s history. I’m not sure if I put it in the place that you thought it should go but I sat on that idea for about a week. I revised the structure because I realized that my thesis had two parts and it would be better near the end to explain the second part. There were some other improvements that could have been made but I still felt like that was a big breakthrough and something I wouldn’t have done before now.
2. I did not mention using rhetoric and style to persuade the audience. I thought I didn’t have that skill at first, but when I put in the effort necessary, I was able to do it. I gained the inspiration to do it after the first big paper to put a little more personality and variance in my sentences.
One thing that confirms my goal is definitely the cohesiveness. I think that is had improved a lot. I still need to work on staying on topic but it was a lot easier to write.
Something that surprised me the way I changed formatting for a blog post versus my other writing. I could definitely tell a difference in how I wrote them.
One thing that confirms my goal of understanding the importance of using appropriate conventions is the differences I notice in some of my writings from the beginning of the semester to now.
One thing that surprised me was how the genre affected the quality of my writing. I was unable to conform to the standards of certain genres.