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Writing Process Reflection Assignment, Core 101
The Writing Process Reflection Assignment requires students to consider how their work in Core 101 has contributed to their growth as writers. The ability to reflect upon your work is essential to your development as a writer. We know, for example, that students do better in their writing courses when they think actively about what they are doing well and what they need to improve in the future. Put another way, students improve their writing when they think of each writing assignment as a way-point in their development as writers, instead of thinking of each one as an isolated “hoop” to jump through. We also know that when students reflect upon how they can apply what they’ve learned in their writing classes into their major field of study, they have a much better chance of successfully transferring those skills into upper-level courses.
Students will evaluate their progress as writers by reflecting upon foundational concepts in rhetoric and composition and discussing their approaches to the writing process.
Objectives:
- Assess efforts to write for different audiences and purposes, e.g. argument, personal expression, rhetorical analysis.
- Reflect upon the relationship between writing and critical thinking.
- Distinguish between composing, revising, editing, and proofreading.
- Propose goals for writing progress.
OBJECTIVE 1: Assess efforts to write for different audiences and purposes, e.g. argument, personal expression, rhetorical analysis.
Because of much of this section overlaps with material covered under OBJECTIVE II of the Personal Essay Assignment, particularly Question 3: “How do I show that I have considered my audience?”, we encourage you to re-read that section. Also, ask yourself:
- Did I tell my audience everything they needed to know?
- Did I assume that my audience already possessed certain knowledge or held certain beliefs?
- Was I correct about those assumptions?
- Did I consider the kinds of evidence my audience would value?
A genre is a way of presenting information that is familiar to a certain audience. As we say in the section “Why should I care about my audience?“, each genre has a typical length, format, style, tone, and content. The concept of genre is closely related to audience. For example, literary scholars would expect an analysis of a poem to include an argument about it, and for that argument to be supported through very close attention to the poem’s specific language. Quotations and paraphrases of the poem would serve as the primary “evidence” for this analysis, though the writer may choose to include detail from the poet’s life or historical period. The paper might conclude by restating its argument, exploring its significance, or even suggesting further avenues of research. If a writer failed to live up to her audience’s expectations of what a literary analysis is “supposed to look like,” then she likely won’t be successful in conveying her ideas.
Consider the