The last essay for English 11000 is a self reflection where we look back on all the progress that we as students have made. In my case I believe that I did grow. I developed multiple course learning objectives like looking for sources, citing them correctly, drafting, reading, and having a stance in all my writing. The essays that have led me to developing these learning objectives are the learning analysis, research informed essay, and this current self assessment essay. The reason I believe I’ve grown throughout the years is because I’ve learned a lot of new strategies that I could use more in the future rather than use the same strategies and formats over and over again in the past. My artifacts show much more effort I had to put into this class which in my past classes I haven’t used as much. The essays I’ve done, while nowhere near perfect, have shown the difference of effort from the start of the year to now.

This is the self assessment essay. Skills that I picked up throughout the course are getting used in this assignment. Whether this essay comes out good or not depends on how much I truly understand the assignment. Some of the strategies that I learned and I used when making this essay are drafting, revising, planning, and editing. When I first read this assignment I completely misunderstood what I had to do and I only realized when I was more than halfway done. This was now my first draft, while it wasn’t correct, it still helped me prepare to do what the assignment actually asked for. This time around I used a paper and wrote down everything that needed to be in the self reflection essay which I then separated into different paragraphs with different pieces of information that I would use. This planning strategy is something I’ve only recently done because before this course i used to only make a little detailed plan and figure out the rest from then. The course learning objective in my opinion has been executed well but not the best it could have been throughout this course. My writing also hasn’t grown immensely but it has grown a significant amount to where the difference in how much effort I put into my essay is noticeable. Not putting enough effort into the essays in the course was very reflected in my writing because my essays would seem rushed or messy most of the time. This time there is more work I put into making the essay which hopefully is reflected throughout the assignment. 

The learning analysis essay is one of the first essays I had to do in this course, it is also when I started to actually develop the ability to connect my points. Even though it wasn’t the best, it was still more progress than I’ve had before this course. While I did have a hard time at the start when trying to write the essay which was proven by my confusing essay, I knew I couldn’t simply read the prompt and go off on that. After this assignment I knew I needed to read every detail of the assignment and truly understand it to get on the path of correctly writing an essay. Before taking this course my idea on how to write an essay was very straightforward: summary, restate, evidence, explain, and repeat. After this assignment I realized that a good essay doesn’t have to be in that format exactly and that a different, more interesting format is the better option. Skills I built with this assignment were developing strategies for revising. This was because it took me more than one draft to create an essay that made sense. After learning more about revising and making connections I was able to use this information to help me with my research informed essays points.

The research informed essay was one of the essays that took more effort than usual. Since there were multiple steps to writing this, it was more work to keep up with and this assignment ended up helping me with four course learning objectives. The first one was learning how to find the sources I was going to use to defend the points I wanted to make in the essay. Using the CCNY database was something that was new to me and hard to work with. Finding articles about emotional literacy was the easy part, the hard part was trying to find five sources that connected, could help me defend the points I was making, and were reliable enough to use. In the end I decided to mold my points to try and match up with the articles that I found rather than waste any more time trying to look for specific arguments in articles. This learning objective connects to another one I learned which is practicing systemic application of citation conventions. This course was the first time I dealt with APA citations and an annotated bibliography which I had to try and adapt to. The second course learning objective I developed during this assignment is how to use everyday language to defend my points. The reason this was difficult to develop is because the articles were typically very professional and used advanced vocabulary that could be hard to simplify at times. This course learning objective connects with the next one I learned which is making sure my writing had a stance within it using strategies like argumentation. While trying to make the articles simpler to understand I had to make sure what I was including was related to my stance and didn’t include as much unnecessary information and supported my argument. While I did learn multiple different course learning objectives, I haven’t mastered any of them. Nevertheless I have grown throughout this class even if it’s not as much as I would’ve wanted. It’s still progress.

The goals I’ve achieved are the course learning objectives that I’ve been getting more used to throughout the year. Though there are some course learning objectives that I’ve still not had much practice with like understanding and using print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences because I wasn’t as focused on my audience as much. This course has introduced me to the course learning objectives which is enough to prepare me for future essays I will have to make and will get added practice which eventually will lead me to truly understanding the objectives and being able to better use them. Another way I’ve developed as a writer this semester is putting more effort and care on how my essays turn out rather than settling for making a basic format essay with less effort than an essay should have. Even if I haven’t mastered anything, I’ve still had enough practice for my skills to grow enough that my future essays won’t be as lazy or rushed anymore.