Assessment Essay 3
"What I have Learned"
This semester did not start out that fantastic. While returning on a trip from Canada my car broke down in Mitchell, South Dakota. The hotel happened to have a computer with an internet connection in the lobby, so I accessed UNO’s blackboard to see what syllabus my English teacher had laid out. The first announcement was about a strict attendance policy. I groaned at this ill omen of how well I was going to do in this class.
Despite the rocky start (two weeks later I was hit by a semi) I can honestly say that I improved greatly during this semester in my critical reading, writing and thinking skills. This semester’s homework was comprised of exercises designed to stimulate those three things. My first homework assignments had to do with the questions at the end of each chapter. There were three chapters in the course. The first was on education, the second on morality, and the last on science and technology. The questions at the end of the chapter were specifically chosen to stimulate topics for our critical responses to the chapter. Also during each day of class we were required to do spontaneous writing about our most difficult moment during the class period. We would have class discussions about the essays we had read in the chapter, which would also help us come up with ideas for our critical response essays. The critical response essays were comprised of a 3-5 page paper discussing the chapter that we had just read. In class work varied from class discussions to workshops to peer collaboration.
On my own time I worked on my portfolio, which was the final project for the class. In high school I had taken two years of classes concerning computers. This class was technology oriented and so my previous experience allowed me to work very well in it. Unfortunately, the style and design of the website was second to writing, and in that area I have always had trouble. I spent more out of class time working on my portfolio than working on my writings and as a result my writings had many surface errors. In class I was able to work fine. I always had something to say in the discussions and I was able to work with my peers. I enjoyed peer editing the most because it gave me the detachment necessary to edit my own papers. Many of the students in the class thought I was a harsh grader. The harshness in which I graded papers is from my strict high school background where I had earned an average grade. In high school I had ignored the basic mechanics of writing because I did not feel like doing the work. Even though I never followed the rules, I knew what they were.
Another thing that made me a strict grader was my debate background. I knew what a persuasive paper should say and look like. Due to my time spent in debate, I was already a critical thinker and reader. It was easy for me to pick out logical mistakes and assumptions. I graded more on ideas than I did on the rules of writing.
As a critical reader, I can very easily detach myself from the paper and look at what the writer is trying to convey to me. I think a well written paper provokes feeling or proves a point. I am not likely to be happy with a paper if the author does not do this well. Reading a bad paper is a waste of my time unless I can tell the writer how they can fix their paper. With the essays it was easy to see what the author was trying to say to me, the reader. The discussions in class made it easier still to form an opinion on the writing that the class had just read. Using my critical thinking skills I was able to decide if I agreed with the writer or not and began to think of ideas for my own paper in response to what I had read.
My reading and thinking skills can still be improved. I know, especially at the start of the semester, that I had trouble being able to see what it was the writer wanted to happen. The discussions in class helped me by telling me what I should look for. It also helps me with future essays I read because now I do know what I am looking for. As a thinker I can still improve in coming up with creative and original ideas. The ideas for my papers come from various sources. My first essays topic came from a class discussion. Many of the peers in my class were questioning the value of a liberal education. To them it was unnecessary to take so many classes to learn their profession. In class, I told them what I had been taught by my debate teacher, Mrs. Daugherty. When I was a sophomore in high school, I had the same doubts about an education that took so long to learn things that were not about what I wanted to go to school for. If I’m a math major, why do I need political science? She patiently explained to me that a liberal education rounds you out as a person and basically, that knowledge is power. As a result of this discussion in class I comprised my first essay, The Importance of Education. Perhaps that is a very bad title, since the paper is basically a compare and contrast of a liberal and functional education. I was able to have this idea from the start, so the developments of this essay were more along the lines of structural re-wording and correcting simple mistakes. This can be seen by comparing two sentences in my educational essay. This one is from my first draft:
The value of education is unquestionable. As stated, it provides openings, paths leading to the achievement of one’s goals and successes. At the same time, it can be used as a controlling tool, an implement to achieve the goals of someone else; the pupil is ignored.
To my final turn in:
The value of education is unquestionable. It provides openings and paths leading to the achievement of one’s goals. At the same time it can be used as a controlling tool to achieve the goals of someone else at the expense of the pupil.
Unlike my first essay, my second essay response rose out of my personal life. The chapter was about morality and one article by Carol Gilligan prompted me to write about moral detachment. Personally, I was arguing with my boyfriend all the time about the church and morality. I had always personally believed that morals had come from the person and not from a higher power. Also, I believed that since morals come from people that they could have flaws and that they could change. My boyfriend, on the other hand, believed that since morals came from god that they were absolutely right all the time in all situations. In my essay, I revealed how this mindset causes conflict and stagnates society. When I first started writing this essay I just was stressing the importance of moral detachment. Later I realized a more persuasive argument would to be to say why we need this detachment; actually, an overall benefit. Those made me add that there is need for progress. I further go on to say how progress can not be satisfied with absolutist morals. The biggest and probably most important change I made in this essay was the way I quoted my sources as seen by these examples:
This is affirmed by the quote “…white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice…Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection…an attitude…of time that will inevitably cure all ills…Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability;…” (King 148,149). Here, it is seen how he points out that the majority of whites sit and do nothing; they pacify and lie to themselves by saying that time will achieve what they cannot.
This changed to:
This becomes clear when King says “…white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice” (King, 148).” He points out how the white majority believe that they should be pacifist and allow time to achieve what they cannot. King’s demand of change is challenging an absence of integrity and that progress will not happen by affirming the old value system.
The anger I had towards my now ex-boyfriend carried onto my third essay that was in response to technology. For the first draft I spoke of how god was losing his hold on the supernatural because of technological advances. After I wrote about four pages, I quickly realized that my topic had little to do with the chapter and was more of my own personal anger than a response to what I had read. I ended up abandoning that idea and going more towards the responsibility of technology. This is my most sophisticated essay with my critical thinking and writing skills. In this essay I examine the reasons why we hold misconceptions about technology and what we should do to resolve problems of it. With constant revision I toned down the language of the essay (example from all to some) and was able to pinpoint the exact reasons why I believe there is such irresponsibility with technology.
As I wrote and revised these papers, the thing that came out at me the most was my weaknesses and strengths in writing. I knew that I was very strong in areas such as revealing a critical thought process and voice. I also knew that I was weak in common structural errors and spelling mistakes. I put in my assessment essays a few times about how I knew that the representation of my ideas was probably more important than the ideas themselves. It is like my ideas are inside a glass case and grammar is the glass surrounding it. When I mess up with simple errors, it clouds the glass making it difficult to see my ideas. The goal is to be crystal clear to my readers so that they understand my ideas. The constant revision helped me go towards that goal. I know that the general cloudiness comes from the fact that I am so in my papers. I know exactly what I’m saying to me. To my readers, it is not so apparent. Setting the paper aside for a few days and looking at it again and again helped me detach from it and allowed me to see the paper as if I had not written it. I think this brought some clarity to my papers.
The ideas that I had came from what I learned from the course while reading the chapters. The chapters were not the focus of the course, so I will just list one of the things that I learned from reading the chapters. The one essay that was like a stroke of genius to me was Carol Gilligan’s essay. Her essay brought something to my attention that I had never known before. I was not aware that a woman’s morality was likened that to a child because females’ evaluation system of morality was different. Nor did I know that we would process moral on a different value basis than a man’s.
There are many things that I learned from the chapters themselves, but the most important things I learned during this course were the techniques of writing. I am aware that this was a technology based class centered on building an online portfolio; I had already possessed the simple technological skills to do this. Although I did learn a little bit about organization and what an online portfolio should have, I did not need much improvement in the web-savvy area. What I really needed help on was writing. I believe I was already fairly good about my critical thinking, so there was not much learning in that area. I did learn about what it takes to be a critical reader and what that meant for me was to slow down and try to think of what the author was trying to tell me. It also meant to see if that author had succeeded in their goal. What I learned the most on was the area that I was the weakest in: writing. I learned that I did not have to avoid personal pronouns. I learned that I use commas too much and that there are other ways to vary my sentence structure. I learned that with constant revision my papers are more enjoyable to read. I became more aware that while I may know what the point in my paper is, I need to make that more apparent to readers. The way I improved on this was leaving my paper alone for a day or two and then go back and revise it. I believe the most important thing I learned during this course was that no writer can just sit down and churn out an excellent paper. The only way an accomplished writer can write anything is with constant revision and that it does get easier every time.
While I may have had ill omens for this class, I actually think I learned a lot. I can honestly say that I am proud of some of the things that I have been able to learn in this class. I also think that my writing skills have improved during this course. I hope that future classes will be able to reap the benefits I have from this course, and that next semester my English class will start off a lot smoother.
