Analyzing and Picking Sources Power point:
INTRODUCTION TO PORTFOLIO:
Professor Rodwell
FIQWS Work and Family
November 26, 2018
Portfolio Self-Assessment
The first-year composition Course 10115 taught writing as a recursive and frequently collaborative process of the invention, drafting, and revising. We have drafted and wrote a narrative identity based on me, a descriptive essay on a place, or object, and a researched critical analysis based on my research project along with self-reflection for all of them. I have developed as a writer throughout these assignments by learning what mistakes I make and adjusting them accordingly. I learned what I need to improve and keep working on in my college career. I have made a process towards the mastery of the course learning outcomes in this class.
The Identity Narrative the first paper for this class was based on my ambitions of wanting to be a lawyer. The purpose of this paper was to draw from my experiences and tell a story. I talked about what event inspired me to pick this future career. For instance, I did not organize my thoughts in order and assumed the reader knew what I went through. I wrote as the event ran through in my mind. I wrote about my Grandmother’s immigration process the first time but failed to mention where, when and why this might be important. I should have organized the beginning, middle of end instead of summarizing. I mentioned what I learned instead of letting the reader conclude that. The reader ended up having trouble following what happened. I told the story very quickly. I learned to not have a sense of urgency in my tone and have more of a sense of organization when writing my essays. I find that I needed to be more specific and provide details such as where and why an event occurred. In this essay, I learned how to better organize my thoughts in an outline and start to build more structure in my essays. I was introduced to peer review and started to consider another point of view.
The descriptive essay goal was to create a formal essay with a descriptive focus. I decided to use my observations from my research project at the New York Society Library. I realize I had difficulties because I did not include enough sensory details, past and present tense, and had no thesis. For example, one of my sentence’s states “As I walked in, there were four stacked wooden bookcases. To the left of the bookcase is a cart full of a newspaper such as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.” I had a problem staying in present or past tense which confused the reader further. I did not explain how a specific quote remained relevant in my essay. Permeant objects did not stay in present tense and varied with consistency. I learned that this was one of my main grammar issues when writing essays. Looking back onto my essays, I realize that I missed descriptions, and should have gone in detail about the several references book I got when I observed.
I found the research critical analysis was the most difficult of the assignments. I knew my research and observations but had no idea how to apply them to the assignment prompts. The focus was to focus on a specific position in relation to my topic and explore it deeply. I was supposed to act critical and draw a conclusion. Looking back, I realize my thesis acted more like a statement that my research barely proved. For instance, my thesis was “I believe that people take advantage of what is offered free to them after than invest in an institution that requires yearly payments or pays for books. This is a fact, and not a thesis statement. I provided the history of each library and details restating my thesis. I thought it would provide background but it read like interview notes. I realize I used the wrong subject, for example, I used ‘you’ but should have replaced that with ‘one’ so it read “Today, the New York Society Library requires one to scrounge up $335 per household.” In the second page, I put it in a quote that was very lengthy and only stated that libraries were important. I learned how to better my sentence structure, grammar, and diction but did not fulfill the prompt of the assignment.
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