Reflective Self Assessment

Acknowledge your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources, and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility.

    Everyone has different ways of expressing themselves, and that includes differences in vocabulary or differences in strengths and weaknesses when it comes to writing. Working in smaller groups in class, or at home allowed for me to get a sense of everyone’s linguistic differences. This was beneficial because we got to see how we could relay the same message in different ways, and emphasized the fact that it’s okay to go out of your comfort zone when it comes to writing. For example, when we were translating an article for one of the group projects, everyone in my group read the same article but had different ideas on how to explain what they read. We were able to get different points of view, understand the article more in- depth, and working on a translation together let us collaborate using our linguistic differences while learning from each other at the same time. 

 

Enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self assessment.

    When it came to working on discussion board posts and the research paper, it allowed for me to to work on my strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing and self-assessment. The discussion board posts were beneficial because we were able to read what our peers wrote as well. Reading different ideas on the same question helped me revise and edit my own posts because there were always a couple of posts that I liked and helped me see the prompt in a different light. When writing the research paper, I was able to work on all those strategies as well while reading the more difficult scientific articles on epilepsy and mood and trying to explain it the best way possible while making sure I get all the important information across. Revising my work was more difficult for me but the challenge allowed for me to  read and analyze my work more in-depth.

Negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium and rhetorical situation.

Negotiating my own writing goals is something I have honestly had more trouble with. Genre’s that no ally don’t include science have naturally been a little more difficult for me but I am still growing and learning as a writer so I know I can always improve. I am confident in the fact that this class has helped me set audience expectations because I’ve been able to present my work in front of my peers, and see how other present as well.

 

Develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.

    We had several opportunities to work on these aspects when collaborating with our assigned groups on our group projects. We had made a group chat and called each other in order to delegate tasks, plan our writing and discuss how we wanted to approach each assignment. I personally enjoyed group work more because I consider myself a social person and I liked hearing everyone else’s ideas, and their thoughts on my writing. Although it was sometimes difficult due to people’s different schedules or some bumps along the road, we were always able to finish the assignment together successfully.

 

Engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond.

I believe my ability to engage in multimodal composing and my exploration of effective writing was prevalent in the Science in the Movies group project. We had to implement what we had seen and understood from a film and explain that in a presentation to our peers, along with an essay. We had to be able to find other sources as well to be able to expand on what we had taken away from the film and connect it to science. This tested my ability to write effectively using those both literature and film because we had to make those connections and help others understand them too.

 

Formulate and articulate a stance through and in your writing.

I felt like I worked on this the most during our discussion board posts. We were provided with two very thought-provoking questions regarding humanity that gave me the opportunity to formulate and articulate a stance through my writing. It gave me the ability to practice on being confident when it came to my writing, and I was able to give my opinion on important viewpoints that differ with every individual. I’ve always been someone who has had a hard time being confident with what I think of certain topics, but seeing everyone else’s posts and how they expressed themselves showed me the importance of standing your ground.

 

Practice using various library resource, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects.

During the process of looking for sources for my research paper, and writing it, I quickly became a lot more comfortable with using online databases and the school’s library database to find the articles or journals I needed. It was important to use the right keywords when trying to find information so I can be lead to the right articles that would provide me with the information that best applies to the topic I was researching.

 

Strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, and citing sources)

Once again, when working on my research paper, it was definitely very helpful in strengthening my source use practices. I got used to using the APA format when citing, taking the information from my sources and paraphrasing it; not copying it word for word but being able to use my own vocabulary to relay the same information. I was able to practice expanding on the sources I used so it didn’t seem like I heavily relied on my quotes or the data that I gathered from it. It’s important to include the necessary information but to also build up your writing from it, which I something I felt I’ve improved on.