Four-Part framing letter
Learning Outcome 1: Writing as a recursive process that requires substantial revision of drafts for content, organization and clarity as well as editing and proofreading. In my middle school, we had an English teacher that went with us through seventh and eighth grade. He was my first introduction to writing as a recursive process. We really only worked on five paragraph essays, but always with the same approach and process. The process he taught me always stayed with me and is something that we worked on in English 110. Even though I know that this is the best way to write a critical essay and argue my point, I always seemed to have a hard time with writing an essay, and then looking at it so critically to almost rewrite it with the next revision. It has always been the case with me, that I have a hard time starting, but once I do, I write until I get all my points out. Then when I relook at the document I do more organization and clarity but not substantial revision. In this class I really got the concept of the thesis. I realized that this was the place where I was deficient, getting my thesis to be strong. By having the strong thesis, then the argument points were easier to do and also easier to see that maybe I did need a substantial revision. Also, a strong thesis led the way to the conclusion. Conclusions were another place where I would get critical feedback on the strength of the document. With a really strong thesis, the conclusion sums up much better.
Learning Outcome 2: Be able to integrate my ideas with those of others using summary, paraphrase, quotations, analysis and synthesis of relevant sources. I really enjoyed the articles and being able to compare and contrast them and find ways to read the writers and either argue my point against their ideas or integrate my ideas with theirs. On the last paper, the article that I chose regarding regulating the internet was not something that I agreed with, but I did agree with many of the writers points and was able to integrate his ideas with my own. I wrote, [Schulson discusses how Facebook, for example, uses variable reward triggers parallel to BF Skinner’s psychological research with pigeons that showed the random interval of reward was the most addictive. These software companies have, “staked their futures on methods to cultivate habits in users to win as much of that attention as possible.” (Schulson 3).] I think that this particular section of the paper really shows how I advanced in being able to paraphrase and also use quotes. Taking a really big point that had a lot of information and focusing it for my argument.
Learning Outcome 4. Be able to critique my own writing and other’s work by emphasizing global revision early in the writing process and local revision later in the writing process. When I read others work I was able to apply the concepts of the class better than reading my own work! The exercise of editing others paper for global revision was really helpful. By seeing where they were succeeding or struggling I was able to then apply it to my own global revisions. Local revisions are easier for me because they are more grammar and proofreading, those types of edits are simpler to me. It may be because of my dyslexia that I focus more on the local revisions because I am always reading my work for spelling errors and clarity. In the case of peer editing for this class, I not only did that I found that I was suggesting ways of helping to clarify sentences and looking for strong thesis’ and topic sentences. As the class went on, I believe I became a better editor for my peers and myself.
Learning Outcome 5 and 6. Documenting work using appropriate MLA conventions and control sentence level error (grammar, punctuation and spelling). In high school I became very, very familiar with MLA conventions. Every paper submitted, from ASL to English to History, had to be MLA formatted. I think that with the exception of some errors in the beginning of the class regarding citing authors (do I write the author’s name then the page or just the page for example) I was comfortable with appropriate conventions. On the other hand, controlling sentence level error was something I believe that I advanced in. As I mentioned, having dyslexia and not having great rapid word recognition, has made me really critical of looking at grammar punctuation and spelling. I will always have to pay extra attention to grammar and spelling but using the model of looking at a document with a fresh set of eyes helps me catch things that I miss. An area where I have become more critical of my writing in the class has been sentence structure. I feel like I have improved there, making sure that sentences are appropriate length and not run ons and more importantly clear.
