Self Assessment
As the semester has come to an end, there have been multiple lessons that were taught within each assignment that was assigned in Writing for the Humanities and Arts English class. In total there were three major essays — Opinion Editorial, Visual Essay, and the Critical Analysis essay –, homework assignments, and peer reviews that have helped progress and better my writing. To help prove and demonstrate my progress, I created a writing portfolio with three separate columns, for each major essay, which includes final revisions, drafts, peer reviews, and homework assignments. With that said, I will be using my overall performance in my writing from the entire semester to answer the course learning objectives as well as explain how my perceptions of what writing is has evolved throughout the semester.
Opinion Editorial Essay:
Before writing the Opinion Editorial assignment, the class was to learn some background information on what an op-ed was in order to complete future assignments related to op-eds. To start us off, we learned what it was and practiced analyzing and distinguishing the rhetorical situation by completing homework assignments. For instance, in the Portfolio on the “Homework” section under the Opinion Editorial column, I provided the Discussion Board prompt along with my response in which I had to choose an op-ed article, analyze the text, and distinguish where the rhetorical situation such as Exigence, Genre, Tone, and Audience was in the article. The op-ed I decided to use was called I Was In Jail For Seven Years For A Crime I Did Not Commit and by analyzing the text and citing the article, it has helped me get a better understanding as to what the Rhetorical Situation is, as well as, understand what an op-ed is and how it’s written.
With a better understanding of the topic, we were assigned to write a draft of our own op-ed. The purpose of the assignment was to write, using a publication, of a unique viewpoint on a social, political, economic, or cultural issue, of one’s choosing, that impacts the world. For this assignment, I chose to use Teen Vogue as the publication to approach a broader audience of pre-teens and young adults who don’t know the negative effects of Fast-Fashion — harms our environment and third-world country/undocumented workers. By shedding light on this issue, it can potentially persuade the audience to do what is best for themselves and the world, as well as, take action regarding this issue. By successfully achieving this writing goal, in the Portfolio on the “Op-ed Draft” section on the Opinion Editorial column, I incorporated my first draft where one can see all of my ideas scattered, disorganized, incomplete reflection, and a confusing structure. To improve on what I had, I constantly went back to the draft and incorporated suggestions and questions such as “What articles will better the argument you are trying to get across?” and “Rewrite your reflection”. Not only did this help my writing but the Peer Review sessions played a huge role in helping successfully finalize my piece. In the portfolio on the “Peer Review” section on the Opinion Editorial column, I attached peer reviews to show the comments done by classmates on their advice and feedback of my essay. To show this, a fellow peer had stated “ elaborate more on the negative effects of Fast-Fashion”. Their feedback showed me that, for this assignment, I was heading in the right direction but needed to fix and edit more to make it better.
As this assignment relied on sources to back-up the main argument, I included articles from The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times that resonate with Fast-Fashion. For instance, I included articles like How Fast Fashion Is Destroying the Planet and Fast Fashion is Cheap, Wasteful, and Hurting the Planet. With the help of Discussion Board assignments and practice in class, evaluating, citing, and analyzing the articles wasn’t too challenging. However, for this essay, I came across challenges where it was difficult to distinguish the rhetorical situation. Since I was new to this new topic, I couldn’t go into-depth or evaluate successfully what the rhetorical situation was. For instance, in the “Opinion Editorial Draft” section, I completely ignored answering the question of what the rhetorical situation was. Overall, the final result of the assignment successfully formulated a firm argument throughout the paper and helped better my writing.
Visual Essay:
Before writing the Visual Essay The Silent Killer, it was necessary for the class to learn some background information on how to write a Visual Essay. To prepare us, we were assigned a Discussion Prompt where the class had to analyze how the creator, Amanda Stenberg’s, of the video Don’t Cash Crop On My Cornrows uses visuals to support her central argument, as well as, discuss what the rhetorical situation of her video piece was. By completing the assignment, it helped give me an idea as to what our next paper will be focused on and how to approach my main argument. For instance, in the Portfolio on the “Homework” section in the Visual Essay column, I incorporated the comments to my response written by Professor McIntosh, to indicate that I had a good understanding. According to Professor McIntosh, she states, “Good, Kate. I like your discussion of Stenberg’s tone”.
Based on what we practiced and learned, we were to use those skills onto our Visual Essay assignment. The purpose of the assignment was to inform the intended audience about a chosen topic through images and text in hopes of evoking a response from the audience. As this essay wasn’t source-heavy, I relied heavily on my original-made meme created in Google Docs, attached to both the “Visual Essay” and “Visual Essay Draft” on the Portfolio, which incorporates pre-existing photos that resonate with the issue on Fast-Fashion to help back-up my main argument, to inform pre-teens and young adults that Fast-Fashion does more harm than good. As my goal was aimed at evoking a response from my intended audience, I successfully achieved this by incorporating images onto my meme of third-world country workers working in sweatshops, protesting, and dying. For example, a fellow peer who Peer-Reviewed my draft said, “I thought the pictures you used on the right side were very moving and definitely enough to spark a conversation between young people”. By using real-life photos, this gives the intended audience, pre-teens, and young adults who don’t know the consequences of Fast-Fashion, a clear image as to who they are “secretly” supporting.
To have successfully achieved my writing goals –to strike an immediate response from the intended audience, a well-thought-out and creative meme with a deeper meaning, and making the essay straightforward and clear — I first wrote a rough draft, located on the Portfolio in the “Visual Essay Draft” under the Visual Essay column, to help outline my paper, jot down all of my ideas, revise and edit countless times. To improve on what I had on my rough draft, I put in suggestions and questions to answer such as “Go back to the article and include more!” as well as “Why don’t you include these sources onto your paper?” Ultimately, writing a draft successfully helped me finalize my final essay, formulate a firm argument throughout my paper, and better my writing.
Critical Analysis Essay:
Before writing the Critical Analysis essay The Fight to End Criminal Injustice and Overturning Wrongful Convictions, it was necessary for the class to learn some background information on how to analyze the meaning of the text without summarizing To prepare and learn how to do this, we were assigned a Discussion Board prompt, which is located on the Portfolio in the “Homework” section under the Critical Analysis column, on an article called Moving Beyond Pain. Since the prompt specifically asked to discuss and analyze the central argument, this was the first step to understanding how to successfully achieve the goal on how to write the essay. With a better understanding of this topic, we were assigned to choose a text on a topic of our choosing that dealt with an economic, political, cultural, or social issue and analyze the meaning of the text. For my final submission, one can see the end results by clicking on “Critical Analysis”, I chose to talk about criminal injustice and the wrongful convictions of Latino and African-American men by using the text How the Central Park Five Expose the Fundamental Injustice in our Legal System. As this essay was source-heavy, I incorporated three scholarly articles and two popular media articles such as The Washington Post, Univision, Jstor, and many more in order to back up my argument. As this essay was strict on analyzing the meaning of the text without summarizing, the Discussion Board assignment prepared us to evaluate, integrate, quote, and paraphrase. For instance, these were shown in my essay by writing, “According to The National Registry of Exonerations, there’s a total of 20 to 200 innocent people exonerated from prison every year.” Instead of summarizing it, I paraphrased what the text was discussing and put it into my own words. Moreover, although writing the final draft of the essay was challenging, having others criticize and provide some input on what can be done better is beyond helpful. For instance, in the “Peer Review” section on my portfolio, one can see the comments peers left in response to my essay such as “Some suggestions I think would benefit your essay would be your conclusion, you can reiterate your primary source’s argument along with your thesis statement as well and maybe a call to action ending?”. Receiving comments like these help me get a better idea as to what I can improve in and progress. Furthermore, for my first draft, located on the Portfolio in the “Critical Analysis Draft” section in the Critical Analysis column, I ended up revising my draft countless times. For example, I added questions like, “what is being done to prevent false accusations from happening again? Why are cases of wrongfully convicted Latino and African-American men a common feature in our legal system?”. I made mistakes like incorporating questions into my thesis statement as well as in my body paragraph.
Overall, after revising and editing, I was left with my final piece for which I felt unsatisfied. Certain writing goals I had for this assignment was to have a clear thesis, no summarizing but instead incorporate my own argument to the text, and straightforward/easy to read. As I have not been able to accomplish all of my goals, I found that I was most successful in writing a well-written thesis and making the essay straightforward and easy to read — I stayed consistent with my main argument, criminal injustice, and the wrongful convictions of Latino and African-American men. Lastly, writing this essay was a journey but it has helped me figure out how I can do better in future essays.
In what ways have my perceptions of what writing is and does evolve this semester?
Year after year, college students experience new and different classes that may or may not make them nervous. As classes are said to get harder every year, I was extremely nervous and scared for the class English 210. My goals for the beginning of the semester was to improve in my writing and as a writer, however, my doubts and fears never fails to always come out to get me. With that said, at the beginning of the semester, I resonated writing/English class with fear. Fear that I wouldn’t get a good grade, fear that I wouldn’t understand or know what to write, fear that my writing wasn’t at a college level, fear to participate and express my own opinion. However, as the semester went by, I soon changed the way I saw writing and began viewing it as challenging yet rewarding. Receiving good grades from all three major essays and homework assignments, as well as, reading comments — good and bad– on all of my drafts and final submissions made me extremely proud. Not only did I feel confident in myself and in my writing but I was able to lower the amount of pressure and doubt I put onto myself. Overall, writing is a way to allow oneself to express themselves, their arguments, and their opinions. Even though it can be challenging, there is always room to evolve by practicing, learning, revising, and editing.
Conclusion:
As the semester has come to an end, multiple lessons have been taught within each writing assignment — Discussion Board assignments and three major essays — in the Writing for the Humanities and Arts class that will not only help improve and better our essays but better prepare us for future essays we may come across. The Self-Assessment and Portfolio will illustrate almost all of the hard work that’s been completed and done throughout the semester. Although this semester has been a rollercoaster, this class has helped overcome challenges — doubts about my writing, analyze texts without summarizing, the use of the rhetorical situation, and more — which will and has made me a better writer.
