Self-reflection
During the course of this class, I’ve learnt a lot of material that has made me a better writer today. In the beginning of the semester we were asked to write a language and literacy narrative essay, emphasizing a moment that was very significant in language and literacy. While writing this essay I used a lot of readings we did in class like “kitchen” by Banana Yoshimoto and “African English from the hood to the Amen corner” by Geneva Smitherman. These readings really helped to improve my methods of description, as I learnt how to describe things in more detail. I also used the Norton website discussing the topic of “writing a literacy narrative” to further understand the concept of considering a rhetorical situation. This article helped me craft a stronger narrative, as it was clearer of what was expected of me.
When I submitted my draft, I was told that I needed to build on my social significance. At the time I wasn’t completely sure on how to do so, until I looked at a sample essay that was posted on blackboard. By reading this sample essay, I was able to identify what I was missing, which helped to further understand the meaning of a social significance.
In phase two, we were asked to write an academic summary. In this we were taught that academic summaries are not meant to be influenced by our opinions. There was a certain structure that we were expected to follow, which made it easier and more understandable. After that we wrote a researched exploratory essay. In this essay I used a lot of sources to build my points. I was taught how to cite in MLA format, which was very new to me, and I also learnt how to use the CCNY library database to find sources.
The assignments given, like “charting a text” and “the art of quoting” was really helpful to me in constructing my exploratory essay, because it taught me how to quote and explain a quote, which I did a lot in the essay. The assignment also had some list of verbs which I used in order for my essay to not be repetitive. Before writing this essay, I looked at past articles we were given to read in class and got very inspired by them. Most of them were surrounding the topic of accent/language discrimination, so I decided to do the same. Discussing articles in class like “sound house” by Lippi Greene, “mother tongue” by Amy Tan and many more, really expanded my knowledge on the idea of language and accent discrimination. In the process of writing this essay, I learnt how to use my sources to support my claims and how to find valid points to reinforce the central idea and thesis. This vastly improved my skills on research.
In phase 3, we worked on the critical analysis essay. Since this was a similar concept to the exploratory essay, it was easier to find and cite sources. In this essay, we were expected to uncover myths embedded in certain language ideologies and the social consequences of it. I used the article “English belongs to everybody”, (a class reading), as well as many others that I found on the CCNY library database, to back up my writing. I found a source that supported some of the myths I had mentioned and used my other sources (that didn’t support those myths) to argue against it. The rhetorical situation worksheet was very helpful when writing this, as I learnt how to state the authors credentials before stating a quote from them.
We also learnt how to create and edit our portfolio on a website, in order to post all our past essays on it.
In conclusion, in this course I’ve learnt a lot of new things. I’ve learnt how to effectively engage my audience in my writing while maintaining a scholarly essay format. The class readings and discussions extensively helped with my understanding of the topics. The sample essays helped to keep me on track and the assignments were found very useful when writing the final draft, as they were good building blocks. I found the research skills I learnt in this class, very useful for my other classes. The corrections given before the final draft were very useful, as it made me understand what I was doing wrong. The material, assignments and feedback of this course has really helped me to become a better writer than I was before I started the course. I have noticed a big difference in my essays and I’m very pleased to see so. This course has also made me more interested in writing and reading, which I’m very happy about.
