Final Reflection

Rochell 1

La’Andra Rochell

Atkins-Gordeeva

Comp 1

26 November 2020

 

 

Projects and Processes  

 

In this semester our class did three major projects. The first essay is “I believe”, the second, a rhetorical essay, and the third is an exploratory essay.

 

 My first project was the “I Believe” essay. It was about traveling and how people enjoy the outdoors. The concept for people to travel is to know the joy of outdoors, and to feel the wind in their face.

 

 In my essay, I reflected on the joy of traveling with my grandmother and what it felt like to travel to other places. In my mind I never experienced the life of travel to other places like mom had with my brother, and they traveled to Six Flags in Texas. I thought I would never experience the outside traveling at a youthful age. In this essay, I learn that travel makes a lifetime of memories and joy when one is traveling.

 

My rhetorical essay by Beatrice R. is about a mother who first started smoking at age 7 and really started smoking for good at age 13. “Her friends were smoking and she wanted to be cool like them. She had served in the Navy and continued to smoke.  She eventually wanted to quit and her son, Nick, wanted her to quit. In the video, Beatrice talked about how she quit and what one can to do to help them quit.  I think an organization that helps a mother quit smoking and a son who aspires to help his mom is wonderful (“Let your Kids”). U.S. Department of Health.

 

Our exploratory essay is about our intelligence. In this essay, we did several questions about our strengths and weaknesses. The first thing was to read a passage about “You Can Grow Your Brain” and get to know about your brain and how it can be used as a muscle. This exploratory essay written by Michael Bank.  This essay tells us the more you use on the brain, the stronger the brain becomes. An example given stated if a person is exercising can lift only 20 pounds, the more they exercise, they could eventually lift 100 pounds or more

 

This was supposed to look like an essay that will answer one question. We must create a question or choose a question on the list that our instructor provided. The question I chose is “Are We Good at Math?”  My answer is as follows: Some of us are good at math while some of us are not good at all. We may be smart at math in class while some are not at the level of learning harder math. According to this article, “if we work with our brain to learn more ways how to work with math, the brain will become stronger and one can no longer say they are not able to understand math because they have been working to use the brain more, the brain is able to absorb more (Nordqvist, C.) 

 

 In the review, we did a reading response on the projects before we started them and we were assigned to do a summary and analyze the article. The second project titled was “Advertisements R Us” by Melissa Rubin.  This article tells us how people can be persuaded by a variety of images. It also makes us want to support certain causes or buy particular objects that we really had not thought about before we saw various photos or images to persuade us.

 

This article talks about service member’s importance and how some members were not as important as other service members and how women were less important than all the men. Even in living communities. COKE was the important drink to have because of the suggestion they provided (Coca-Cola Company).

 

Learning Outcomes for Comp l

 

I have demonstrated the ability of the usage and mechanics through developing and revising compositions. When I did the exploratory essay, my instructor gave our class some sources for the work, cited page for our writing. We cited sources, did an outline of the work cited that we choose before writing it in our essay.  In this exploratory essay, I read three reading responses, one article, and one video. 

 

The sources were provided to us to find the answer to our percolating question for our exploratory essay.  I used the outline to start my essay with two introduction paragraphs to help in the essay and we used the summary and response to help us also. The third paragraph was a great help for us to write with, here is an example: My search began with this quiz that our instructor assigned us with a” Mindset Work” that ask several questions about our intelligence. 

 

We used multiple sources to put our essays in action with different sites. I used the three reading responses, one from the comp book, and the other is from a video that I choose to watch. We did the summary response worksheet to use as a guide for our writing. We outlined to know what to write about in our essay and put in our rough draft. We let students look at our rough draft to comment on what to add or to be fixed. Our instructor gave us feedback on our rough drafts also. 

 

I developed my knowledge of my grammar, spelling, and word usage that were included in the work cited. I may not score very well in all three or two essays. I will learn to write well in the very near future. My grammar, spelling, and word usage may be challenging from the beginning of the semester to the end of the year. I used the guide of my comp book, instructor, and peers to look over my paper and finalize our work. 

 

Learning Outcomes for Composition Review  

 

At the beginning of the first semester of Comp Review, our class did a time management worksheet to manage our time. This time was used to figure out how to manage our time wisely. I did a LOCs checklist with quotes and paraphrases with the help of OWL. The HOCs and LOCs are used as a guide for help in our writing. The HOCs and LOCs are like a little helper for us to use any time are confused with the writing.

 

I have demonstrated critical thinking skills by reading texts in various genres and responding and developing composition. We did our worksheet about paraphrases and quotes for four readings and for the hide and seek worksheet. We did another hide and seek worksheet on verbs and a rough draft of verbs to add the -ing sound. We did a HOCs and LOCs worksheet on what is needed to be in the essay. 

 

We made a blog of our progress about the work we post there. We must do an introduction about what the audience is reading in the post. Our posts included our rough drafts, outlines, polish drafts, and reading responses. Each post we published is graded for points and how the readers like the post. I want people to look at my blogs and tell me what they think.

 

In the review, we have done a pattern worksheet, a pattern of error to practice on are grammar, wording, and punctuations. This helps students’ correct sentences that have errors in them.  We need to double check our writing and make changes as necessary.   If OWL had not been there for us, we would be stuck as a log. 

 

We use a unique way to fix errors with OWL and Grammarly. The OWL or Grammarly would not be present if the error or correction was needed. My instructor looks at our writing, she yellows highlighted on our paper which sentence needed to be corrected, added, or deleted. The quotations beside the yellow highlight was feedback from our instructor.

 

 The feedback helps to change some of the wording from each assignment to receive a higher grade. If the feedback is acknowledged, we will keep trying to get our work corrected little by little. The highlights we received in our writing allows us to change words or wording that is incorrect. Some did not change because we read aloud to make sense of the essay. 

 

 

 

 Strengths and Challenges 

 

When I am writing my strength is to write a rough draft and continually think about what it is I want to say.  I am not successful in turning my work in on time like my peers, but I will get better each time I have an assignment.   When I write my essay, I write it on paper, then type it into word document and I do not proof read very well before turning in my assignment. 

 

Overall Benefit  

 

In Comp 1, it would have been a good semester if COVID had not reared its ugly head, but we fought until the end of the semester. This class taught us how to focus on our writing skills and correcting our errors.  I may not be good at writing as other students, but I am and will get better than I presently am. We are all future writers and we can inspire and encourage others to write about anything

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