Summary Mastery Evaluation

With careful evaluation of my strengths and weaknesses in writing, it is a core objective for me in this class is to achieve more simplicity in my writing, both in the final product and in the approach. Furthermore, as a product of this class, I would like to develop the ability shift my focus of a topic to various viewpoints to enhance my perspective and ultimately

It is still so surreal to reflect back on my first semester as an incoming college student in the ENC1101 course, analyzing at my progression as a reader and writer in literacy. Since the first day of class I set in stone my goals for this class: receive a 4.0 GPA, develop my connecting theories skills in writing, and become more aware of objectives for each Unit throughout the course. All of these goals became achievements that not only make others proud but most importantly give me self pride. In order to earn the grades and achieve these goals, I went after every opportunity that I was given as an incoming college student, such as office hours and extra credit. By taking this course I have gained confidence with the utilization of literacy, and made an addition to my group of impactful literacy sponsors. Once students are finished with high school they assume that there is nothing else to learn beyond the stereotypical five paragraph essay, but they are so wrong. I was able to obtain so much knowledge about numerous course concepts from Writing about Writing, articles, and my professor. These concepts will carry on with me throughout a bright future of writing courses, job interviews, and any other skills that require literacy. The four outcomes listed below will help illuminate how I improved as a writer, by being a driven college student and going out of the way to earn my achievements in this course. In the first outcome I improved comprehending scholar texts,

Throughout this course, I was able to assess and evaluate my weaknesses and strengths in writing. This class has truly brought out my ability to write, a skill I did not believe I had. I now know what it takes to become a college-level writer. Also, at the beginning of the course I did not particularly enjoy writing. Now, however, I have a greater respect for

In Freshman Composition I learned what metacognition means, and how it applies to academic writing. Next I learned about textual evidence and backing up your opinions with research. *I expect this class to help develop my writing skills, as well as find my voice in writing, all together I expect this class to be challenging but rewarding. Therefore I have set a few goals for myself, my first goal is to step out of my comfort zone and research topics I have never heard of before. My second goal is to not second-guess myself on my writing topics and/or choices. Furthermore I expect great things to come from this

I completely agree with Melzer on this. If I know that my audience is only my teacher then I will attempt to sound more professional than if I knew that my audience were people my age, where I can write in a way that will appeal to them. Although, I think that the most muddiest tip out of the rest was Tip #1. Melzer basically says to look for key verbs in an assignment, such as summarize and evaluate. I sort of thought this tip was useless. He tries to explain why the tip is useful, but after reading it I came to the conclusion that it’s just basically overthinking since at the end of the day it’s all just common sense. Summarize and Evaluate will always have the same definition, so if an instructor says, “Hey, summarize this,” you should know what summarize means. Although, if you want more information and know exactly what is expected then you should ask, but I just feel as though that’s doing way too much and overworking yourself (even though I will still do this from time to time.) After reading Melzer’s tips I have come up with my own in succeeding as a

At the start of this course, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had a goal for myself to improve and learn skills that would make writing less daunting for me. I have learned so many things about my writing that I didn’t think much about before. Another goal I had was to break the cookie-cutter mold that was set upon me throughout high school. During the process of revision, I discovered many things about myself as a writer and techniques that have been effective for me in the writing process.

One of the first things we learned this year was how to write a successful summary of an article. This is something I thought I had been doing correctly all throughout high school, but I was wrong. As Professor Dodd was teaching us what we should have in the summaries I realized my writing had a long way to come to be at the standards of this college writing class. In high school, I would use quotations to fill up my word count, it became clear to me early on in the course that this wouldn’t get me a good grade in the class. In my Summary piece I wrote, “Texting has become a very secretive form of communication, Truss compares it to passing a note, you have to be careful what you use

In assignment number three, I was instructed to write a short summary about an article titled Hidden Intellectualism by Gerald Graff. Learning goal number two is being able to write in various academic genres. I demonstrated that I understood this learning goal because I was never able to write in any other genre then free writing. This assignment helped me perfect my skills in writing short summaries about an article because it broadened my expertise in writing. Thinking of summarizing, you’d incorporate it as an easy task but for me it really wasn't. Writing a short summary on an interesting article was not easy. I started off by using the skills of learning goal number one and annotated the article throughout my reading. Writing in different

Before this course, my writing exceeded above an average level, but now my writing has developed a sophisticated technique. This course pushed me to include higher comprehensive words into every piece I wrote. Continuously, I would be searching the internet for synonyms of verbs, adjectives, and nouns I wanted to include in my writings. This technique forced a maturity to emerge into my writing. As a writer, my options and understanding of diverse types of writing has improved immensely. This course allowed me to discover what forms of writing I write best, and what difficulty each type brings. My writing is strong with formal pieces, like the Prairie Meadows Scholarship Essay; pieces where I am allowed to use figurative language and make

Over the past four months, I have made great strides as a writer. The area where I have seen the most growth is in my use of the writing process. Prior to my enrollment in this course, I would sit down and write all my papers in one sitting. This class has taught me how to lay out a plan for my papers. I have learned how to effectively brainstorm/research, draft, and revise my writings before I complete them. Also I have learned to not just stop there, instead I am now going back and reflecting on my work after I complete it. This allows me to identify where I prospered and also where my downfalls may have been. With this information, I am able to apply this to future writings of mine; lessons that will stay with me forever.

Over the course of this semester, I have learned many things to improve my writing. Having taken the course before, this semester has been an excellent opportunity to expand on my existing knowledge. Although I had written many essays before, there is still much to be learned and improved. Two factors of writing that I had learned or improved on this semester were transitions/topic sentences and how to properly structure a conclusion paragraph.

I began this course with goals to significantly improve my writing. I knew there were challenges for me to overcome, because I have not written much at all since high school, which has been more than twenty four years ago. Nonetheless, I was up for the challenge and each week I made sure to do exactly as instructed in the weekly syllabus, reading each every assignment very carefully. At first I felt overwhelmed, but as I completed the homework and discussion post assignments for the weeks prior to the major papers, the overwhelming feelings subsided and I concentrated on each task at hand.

Proficient writing is an essential skill in all aspects of academic and professional achievement. English 101, Introduction to Composition and Rhetoric, provided the framework to good writing, teaching me composition and rhetoric fundamentals, polishing up my grammar and style, and expressing a clear message. English 102, Composition, Rhetoric, and Research, continued to build on the skills I learned in English 101, focusing on the subject matter research process and employing various rhetorical and literary devices to better express a clear message to the reader. The course also improved my critical thinking capacity, allowing me to culturally evaluate my target audience, present logically flowing arguments using appropriate language and structure, and critically reviewing my writing projects for content and expression. Every writer inherently knows there’s always room to improve and I hold fast to this mindset in all academic, professional, and personal writing projects. English 102 has both challenged and inspired me to grow into a much better writer than before I began the class, providing the necessary skills to be not just a good writer, but a great writer.

Before taking this course my writing styles and habits were very different. I was the typical procrastinator because I would wait until the night before a paper was due to start it. This did not allow me enough time to properly proofread everything, which resulted in getting points deducted for simple grammatical errors that could have been avoided if I would have had the time to proofread. My writing styles have many strengths and weaknesses and I have been able to improve my writing because of them. I have learned from my strengths and weaknesses how to become a better writer.

Over the course of this past semester, my ability to write has improved tremendously. Prior to undertaking this course, my expertise in writing was not as fine-tuned as it should have been. I had never previously been enrolled in a class specifically tailored to writing-- which was quite clear. Upon reading my past works, it becomes apparent that my writing style consisted of fluff, small words, and inconsistently structured sentences. These problems have, for the most part, been remedied with the coursework I have tackled in College Writing. Rather than long, drawn out papers that take an eternity to reach the primary point, my recent work is much nicer in terms of composition and grammar. I credit these improvements to the three primary