Spring 2021 Final Reflection

Project Description:

In this final assignment, you will write an essay in which you reflect on your learning this semester. The goal of this essay is to demonstrate to me your understanding of the things you learned.

Requirements:

Length: 750-1500 words

Due Date: Friday, May 7th (at 8AM!–do make note of this time!)

Format: single spaced, 12 point, Times New Roman

Assignment Rationale:

Reflective writing assignments such as this one are intended to help you articulate both to yourself and your instructor what you have learned and how you learned it. Research shows that this kind of self-knowledge is helpful in bringing the things you learned in this setting to future writing situations. It also gives you the opportunity to explain things you learned to your instructor that might not necessarily be showing up in your previous assignments.

Suggestions:

Because this assignment is so open-ended, you might struggle with what to write about. That’s OK. Here are some suggestions that you can follow to help you as you brainstorm and write (feel free to do more than what they say, or to them partially, or to make a combination of them, or you can also write something completely different. All is good, so long as your reflection centers around being a student):

Suggestion 1: Learning goals / Artifacts

Go through the course learning goals and write about activities (either major assignments, homework, in-class or online activities) that helped you learn that goal, even if only partially. For each goal that you discuss, be sure to pick a specific example of learning and to explain how the activity that you write about helped you learn that goal. You might think about using the associated outcomes as guidance (for example, if you’re writing about Goal 1, you can use the outcomes listed underneath it to help you think through it).j

Suggestion 2: Looking forward

Revisit what you have learned and worked on throughout this semester (in this course) and make connections to how it may apply to your future school work, profession, personal goals. Consider anything you have learned (from the actual terms we defined in this course, to any work ethic skills you may have picked up) and reflect on how you might use and improve on those things as you move forward. Use specific examples where appropriate. (Remember that vague and abstract sentences/claims make for a weaker paper.)

Suggestion 3: You as a writer

Who are you as a writer now versus when you began the course? How has your writing changed/developed? Use specific examples! What have you learned about writing in this course? What have you learned about revision? Where else can you apply revision? Moving forward, what would you like to improve about your writing? What are your strengths and what do you notice are still areas for improvement? Etc.

Suggestion 4: Living through a pandemic

Reflect on what being a student this year has been like. What have been some of the challenges for you? Have there been any positives? Did these times, for example, help you work more on your self-motivation? What do you wish had been done differently? (Any way I could have made this class smoother?) What has helped you stay afloat? For this prompt, you can write about being a student in general–it doesn’t have to relate to solely this class.

Suggestion 5: Comic (Graphic Memoir)

Minimum of 4 pages. 4 panels minimum per page. Has to relate somehow to being a student. Perhaps what would be easiest for this is to use the prompt for suggestion 4–but this is the visual version of the above. How might you write about your experience as a student during the pandemic? There is no word requirement for this suggestion, but like with P2–if you decide to make a comic, you’ll have to have both a visual and text element. Your comic could be an equal amount of text and visual, or it can be mostly visual with thought bubbles or mostly visual with a brief narrative running through each panel, or, or, or. Can be done digitally if you know how. Or can be done on print paper by hand. (Scan and upload to submit.) First a sketch that your peers can give feedback on. And then the final version for May 7th. // If a comic is what you go with know that I will not be grading based on visual skill. If stick figures are what you can draw, then cool. This however doesn’t mean that you can slack on the visual element! I’d like to see that you put thought and effort into your visuals–like with digital posters, consider why and how you include your visual. Why a close up of a face? Why might you leave a panel mostly blank? Why might another be highly detailed? Why might you heavily shade your visuals? Etc, etc. // I am expanding on this one the most just because I doubt many of you have worked with comics before… and I also don’t know how knowledgeable you all are with graphic novels. Overall, though, I think this could be a fun way to approach the final reflection and hopefully wouldn’t be too tough.

Here is what I am imagining in my head. I wrote this to plan out a flash essay, but this is what your (unedited) pages could look like. There are 5 panels in this example–the middle larger than the rest and the bottom right not contained in a box and that might have a purpose. This sample is not about the pandemic, but if it was I would clean it up (revise the text and decide on what visuals I include and how), but I’d just use stick figures and you all can do that too. // Including this because maybe this can help! Possibly.

The following list can be used as reference to write your reflection essay OR could also be used as a template for your essay (but you don’t have to use the below):

Key terms or concepts: What terms (such as genre, discourse community, literacy, for example) have you learned in this class and what do they mean to you?

Readings: What things have we read that stick out to you? Why do they stick out? What things have you retained from these readings?

In class or online activities: What in-class or online activities have we done in which you think you learned something from?

Writing Process: Describe and/or draw your writing process. What can you say about this? What works and what doesn’t? What technologies do you use and why (also, remember that pen and paper are technologies)?

Major Assignment: Reflect on your major assignments. What did you write about and why? What did you learn from writing it?

Self-Assessment: Assess your work in this class. What have you done well and what can you improve on in the future?