Abigail L. Ureña
Prof. Crystal Rodwell
Writing for Engineering
10 May 2020
Self Reflection for ENGL 21007
This course has been one of the first courses in my college career in which I have had to write assignments using a real world perspective. The assignments I have received in this class have really challenged me, and have encouraged me to become a better writer. I struggled in many phases in writing my assignments for this course. Receiving peer feedback, writing outlines, and using the course learning outcomes as a guide were very beneficial for me and my journey in becoming a better writer. Before this course I often choose to write in first person and include opinions in my work because this is how I was accustomed to writing. However, since then I have learned how important it is to write from many different perspectives. I have also written many assignments in different perspectives.
The assignments for this course were very different from the assignments of previous courses. These assignments were different because they were based on real world situations, and they actually had to be realistic. For me this was a very clear message that I had to make my writing relatable, accurate and sophisticated. When writing the memo, I didn’t fully grasp the concept of making my writing usable for the real world. With the help of my classmates, and their peer reviews, I was able to improve my writing to make it adept for professional situations. This allowed me to have a better perspective of what I should do when writing future assignments.
The letter of introduction assignment helped my focus on what my goals were for this class and the near future. Writing the memo allowed me to understand what a professional memo writing was going to be like, and what that entire process entailed. The reflection for the memo helped me understand what I had to do to improve the memo and what would make it more applicable to real world situations. The lab report analysis gave me a different perspective from which I could analyze and understand the perspective of others. The peer review for the lab report analysis was one of the most helpful for me, and allowed me to understand different ways I could approach this assignment, that would better allow me to analyze from a different perspective. The reflection for the lab report analysis was helpful because it made me understand my strengths and weaknesses and what I could assess in myself to improve my writing. Writing the technical description allowed me to be very detailed and focus on every element that I would be writing about. This reflection made me realize what I could improve in my technical descriptions, and what I should do for the next time. The proposal allowed me to think of a problem and a solution I would propose that could solve the problem. The proposal has helped me practice in presenting a proposal, and articulating my ideas and forming a presentation that will be effective.
During this course my weaknesses were definitely highlighted. I put in a lot of time and effort to try to make my writing as best as it could possibly be. Using the Course Learning Outcomes as a guide helped me transform my weaknesses into strengths. The CLO’s that were most often demonstrated in my writing were: Negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations, engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond, formulate and articulate a stance through and in your writing, strengthen my source using practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources), and develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of the writing processes. These CLO’s are responsible for my growth as a writer, and are present in all of the assignments I have written for this course.
This course was a huge learning experience for me. This class allowed me to evaluate how I approached writing, and if my methods were effective and successful. Writing for this class also forced me to view writing from many different perspectives, and make each of them very realistic. I had to make all of my assignments realistic so that would be suitable for a professional environment. That for me was a blunt realization of what I had to do to be able to succeed in this class, and beyond. I applied this new approach to all of the future assignments. Since the beginning of the semester, I have witnessed an immense amount of improvement in my writing for this class, and in my writing in general. This class was very difficult for me, and I am glad that I can witness some improvement in my writing. This class was an absolute challenge, but I have learned an abundance of information that I will be able to apply to my life in the near future.
