Self Assessment Essay
Despite being raised in a Spanish speaking household where using English was forbidden and viewed as disrespectful, not because it was inherently wrong but because no one understood the language, it’s remarkable that I developed a deep love for English literacy. Even though being punished for attempting to speak English, the prohibition never deterred me from learning it. As I was entering college I realized that English classes vary depending on age, education etc. Back in highschool majority of my English courses were boring. Now that I have entered a new stage in my education level, I came to the conclusion that throughout this course I’ve been proven wrong many times. Engaging with these course objectives and phases has prompted me to reflect on experiences that have shaped my language and literacy journey, an introspection I found highly inspiring as it highlighted how far I’ve come. Each phase served a distinct purpose, allowing me to take away valuable lessons and further refine my writing abilities and comprehension.
Phase one of the course required us to revisit and contemplate those moments when we encountered challenges or opportunities in acquiring a new language, and how those experiences modeled our writing abilities. This phase proved to be one of the most awakening and reflective themes at least in my opinion, prompting us to delve deep into our personal journeys with language learning and its impact on our development as writers. In connection to this writing prompt, we looked deep into the following English genres and concepts such as a “broken english” essay from Amy Tan “Mother Tongue” and a Ted talk video of “accents” from Saleem Safwat. They both shared an extremely touching message of how each individual has its own challenges and obstacles they witnessed with the English language. It’s not an easy process but we all get to where we want to get with hard work and effort. While learning about this concept In class and hearing people’s personal stories on how they at some point were challenged made me reflect upon the fact that we ALL go through rough moments and it’s not just one person that feels lost in a world filled with “knowledge.” It feels safe to know that every individual overcomes its obstacles differently and we all eventually learn from one another. That made me cherish all the moments in which I once felt lost in not knowing how to read and write in English because I wasn’t the only one struggling but rather striving like everyone else and with the help of other individuals I became an English lover, something I never imagined happening.
During this phase I learned the importance of drafts, collaborating, revising and editing, something i wasnt a fan of back in high school. Having a complete stranger read over my personal experience has always been scary because of the judgment that comes afterwards, however that mentality has overtuned and I’m now comfortable and confident enough to share it with the entire world because hearing someone’s critics helps a lot in structure and areas of improvement. They always say that two heads will always be superior to one. In addition, the rhetorical analysis worksheets helped me immensely to improve brainstorming and understanding what the author is trying to convey. The worksheets helped me to look deeply into hints you may not have noticed at first sight, it taught me that analyzing whatever it is that you’re reviewing whether its a video, essay, short story etc It’s important to know that each author has its own unique strategies to portray a picture of their overall message. Something I proudly improved on throughout this phase.
The second and last most improving phase of the course for me was phase 3 “Rhetorical Analysis Essay” in which you had to examine the rhetorical strategies used by a variety of texts and authors and using online scholarly sources to improve your writing. When it comes down to research essays the biggest thing I struggle with and found myself struggling with currently was looking for the appropriate sources to help boost my reasoning. There’s millions of website sources but how would you know what fits the category properly in which you’re speaking about and taking my time to read through them helped. I had the bad habit of skimming through texts to see if they mention the topic but that never worked as it spoke of the opposite of what I was looking for. Therefore a big tip to everyone who’s struggling on how to find the appropriate sources, take your time reading and brainstorming, in what possible ways of argument or claims can that specific text help in your writing. After you’ve done so, you’ll find yourself mastering any research paper you come across.
Through this phase not only did I learn the importance of revising but how to study and distinguish the different rhetorical strategies authors use while writing. It’s impressive to see that authors have different ways of conveying a message using different forms of writing structures and different tones and they all seem to line up in the same direction. Writing the following essay (research essay) was more interesting than I thought, I struggled more trying to understand the writing prompt than the actual writing itself. Having to include online sources to improve my reasoning scared me the most as I had already reached the word limit and I even went over it by using just my thoughts so having to go back and revise my work to then include sources which was the actual purpose of the entire essay stressed me out the most but I managed to make things work out. So definitely, I learned how to define my reasoning in a specific word limit and manage to stay within the limit.
In conclusion, throughout this English course I learned many factors about my writing and reading comprehension that I was able to improve on. There’s still a lot more progress to achieve but I’m lucky enough to say that I was able to improve on the things I mainly struggled with and will continue to learn how to manage it and perfect those imperfections throughout my years in college.
