English 1020 Unit 1 Assignment

When demonstrating my growth as a writer across several pieces, there are four main learning outcomes in which I have focused on. These include writing, reading, researching and reflecting. Within these learning outcomes, there are many different conventions and ways to understand my various projects and assignments as a writer. Throughout the English 1020 class, I have been able to observe not only my previous strengths, but myself growing as a writer by improving my ability to find strong sources as well as properly citing and explaining them, forming a more logical paragraph structure, and many more conventions when writing an assignment.
The first learning outcome in which I would like to discuss is writing. Writing effectively for rhetorical situations while working on my discourse community paper about Kappa Delta Sorority is perhaps one of the areas I found myself struggling the most in. This is because I consistently got stuck when making sure the paper had a logical flow within each paragraph and keeping

the same logical flow. Achieving logical flow depends on moving from one topic to another in a logical sequence and on the use of legitimate paragraphing which allows that logic to be clearly visible to the reader. An example of this is when I went from saying “Kappa Delta has a large set of common public goals.” To “KD is a national and well-known organization, focusing on the college women of our country by promoting confidence on/around campus” (Discourse Communities). In this, I later noticed myself going from one topic to a whole different point, which occurred later in the essay.

However, upon writing the discourse community paper on Kappa Delta, I found that I utilized one of my strengths as a writer. This included being able to define a discourse community, as well as tie the definition to my topic and provides many examples in order to help the reader visualize the different conventions used in the paper Kappa Delta as a discourse community. “Kappa Delta is not just a small group, but also a large discourse community, with a strong genre consisting of the communication system known as GIN (Group Interactive Networks)” in this example used from paragraph one, this overall shows my strength in being able to briefly define a discourse community, but also relates to my direct topic of Kappa Delta. Another example of how I have improved as a writer but in an every day situation is when we had an in-class discussion on how to write a proper email. As a class, we discussed the many elements to focus on when writing an email as well as how to start writing the next assignments. The homework assignments such as reflecting on an article in class and discussions on future projects have helped me become more skillful. Because of this every day example, every time I send something as simple as an email out, I am always thinking about how it should be professional and reflect learned writing skills.
When considering writing learning outcomes, I can conclude that after I wrote about Kappa Delta being a discourse community, I was able to see my growths as a writer because I found that I was better able to directly get my point across without being overly wordy in some cases as well as being able to form a much better logical structure and flow throughout my arguments. The strategy I used to overcome the struggle of wordiness and flow included cutting out sentence fragments, and finally breaking up large paragraphs altogether, all when discussing discourse communities and organization. Overall, in the past three months I feel like I have accomplished a great deal. As the second semester comes to an end I find myself reflecting not only how I have improved as a writer but also what I have learned throughout the class when it comes to composing different projects.
Being able to use different reading strategies in order to understand complex texts in varieties of media is another important course learning outcome. When reading large printed articles and texts, I found a strategy to help me truly break it down in order to better comprehend it better. I did this by overlooking all the pages with the most noticeable/useable info, and then directly underlining certain quotes to use later on in class. The text I used for this was Body Ritual of the Nacirema because this was one the first articles we read individually in class to then figure out on our own what was actually being said. By breaking it down, and being able to comprehend the terminology used in it, I was able to grow as a reader while reading this printed article because I was told to take it step by step, and take the time to annotate directly on the media itself. I felt my new strength was able to be strong in understanding the subject matter of the Body Ritual of the Nacirema article, and be able to fully accept the step-by-step annotation process.
Conducting research was perhaps one of the most improved strategies I had encountered while completing and writing project two, which was about professional vs popular articles and editorials. I wrote my project two on how professor Diane Adamos speaks between an editorial as compared to an academic article. The way I improved in research was by going to the UGl and having a librarian show the class a way to use the website to find academic and reliable sources. “The use of certain intellectual diction, tone, the use of many appeals such as logos and ethos, and finally the fallacies used all play an important part in distinguishing and contrasting the articles as an academic or editorial.” (Rhetorical Analysis) this is an example of how during my research, I was able to distinguish the difference between the two articles. Overall, I improved in my ability to research because of my strength to use sources that were provided for my use, such as the wayne.library.edu website.
After examining the question of how I have improved when it comes to research, the answer is because of how I was able to find useful content from online sources.

When beginning as a writer, I can say that I did not like to research at all, especially about the topics which were assigned. This is also because I wasn’t entirely sure on where to find academic articles or editorials, let alone be able to cite and use them in a project. I have improved on this gradually throughout almost every assignment this class has given me. Another example of this is from project two, which was the rhetorical analysis: “Adamos and her partners have provided a way so that the two different audiences can relay and comprehend the information of her argument within an academic and editorial context” (Rhetorical Analysis). When writing the rhetorical analysis paper specifically, I was able to conduct proper research and improve because of my new ability to find great

sources.
When referring to acquired knowledge about cognitive processes, or metacognition, I can say that I have grown as a writer in this aspect of reflection. This is because reflection for me is a strong tool when writing a new assignment. When reflecting on a project, I can notice things that I could have done better, and then find ways to construct a better approach when writing a new assignment. My strength when reflecting is being able to use the constructive criticism from the grade of a previous paper, and be able to write more effectively and develop new writing strategies. An example of this as provided is “I realized that I needed to improve upon the structure of my paragraphs as I was writing” (Project 3 Reflection) in this, it is clear that I realized what I needed to work on sentence structure specifically, as well as understand what I needed to do next like find new ways to organize the ideas together as one understandable paragraph. When looking at the course learning outcome for reflection, metacognition played a large part because it simply means the overall ability to be conscious and reflect on previous thoughts and processes, therefore, I have been able to reflect on previous work, and grow as a writer.
Also when reflecting upon myself as a writer, I occasionally notice myself in the process of writing, and then leading to a different track. When this happens and I sometimes get off topic, I find it useful to get a piece of paper, and then outline my different ideas and what I am trying to say in the paper or paragraph. Organizing a paper in a logical way sometimes has proven difficult for me, but then I find a way to get around it by asking a friend or groupmate their opinion on what to do when changing the structure or topic. After they read the different points I am trying to get across, they help me in the process of reflection by giving me very useful constructive criticism, which I then try to use to my advantage. Also, I can now structure my sentences in a more concise manner and I have learned what not to do in my writing. Through reflection, I learned to be more direct and concise as well as understand the main differences between professional writing and academic writing. I learned how to address different audiences, think in audience's perspectives, and understand different ways on how to induce the audience to accept the writer's opinions/offers through rhetorical situations.
In conclusion, when reviewing on the course outcomes, I can truly see the many different ways I have grown as a writer. These all included being able to research using different sources such as the online library sites, read and annotate printed and online media, use the different notes taken to form a structure and write about it, and finally be able to reflect upon how I can use past assignments to form better ideas for future ones. I believe that I have many strengths as a writer because of how well I can annotate and find educational sources, but also can see how I have truly grown as a writer as well because of the many new tools and resources I have been given insight on all around me. Overall, through this course I learned how to be more concise and write more effectively. The principles that we discussed throughout the semester helped me to be more critical of my work, find better sources when researching, and truly improve and grow as a writer when reflecting upon the four main course outcomes.