Formatting/Length

4 full pages

Typed/double-spaced

MLA format: Times New Roman 12 point font, 1 inch margins

The end of the semester is an opportunity to reflect back upon what you have learned. In a writing course like this one, we have the opportunity to think about how our writing has developed, how we view our writing presently, and how we will write in the future. This assignment provides you the opportunity to reflect on your work this semester; it asks you to develop a reflective analysis of how your writing has developed throughout the course.

Task:

A Reflective Essay that examines what you have learned about your writing, critical thinking, and critical reading with evidence from all of your essays/writings (from this semester) to support your claims. This Reflection is no less difficult than any other essay we have written this semester, and it must clearly explain what you have learned about your own writing and provide evidence from your revised essays and other writing in the course to support your discussion.

Thesis and Organization:

In this essay, your thesis needs to express what you feel you have learned about your writing through your work this semester, and you will need to support this thesis with body paragraphs that provide evidence that backs up your claims.

You are organizing this essay by making claims about your writing; however, there are a couple of ways of doing so. For instance, you can discuss one assignment and its process in each paragraph and arrange the draft chronologically, or you can make claims about how the various activities contributed to your development as a writer: series of drafts/revision, peer reviews/feedback, self-assessments, readings/research etc. Alternatively, you can organize your draft on the basis of the qualities of successful writers posted under Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing.

Genre and Audience:

Your audience is, as it has been all semester, me and your classmates. The tone of the reflection is narrative, but the structure is the same as all your other analysis essays. As such, you will use the first person and reflect on your journey through this semester, but provide evidence from all your works to support your claims.

Required Responses:

1. What have I learned about my writing, analysis, and critical reading through the process of substantially revising one of my essays and through working on my writing this semester?

2. How will I challenge myself to develop my writing in the future?

Other Options to Explore: you might also consider the following questions, though you will not be able to cover all of them in a single essay:

· What was the experience of writing my first essay at the university like? How did it compare to earlier writing? Looking back on the experience, what do I know now about college writing that I did not know then?

· What have I learned about analyzing texts and reading them critically?

· What have I learned about the processes of writing—coming up with ideas, organizing my work, writing multiple drafts, revising my work?

· What have I learned about the importance of receiving feedback on my work from my peers and others?

· What have I learned about developing my ideas in more depth and providing evidence to support my ideas?

· What have I learned about the research process and finding sources to support my work?

· What have I learned about rhetorical situations and rhetorical strategies?

Developing a successful Reflection:

· Revising fully gives you more opportunities to reflect upon insights you have had about your writing.

· Remember that the Reflection is narrative in form: take your readers through the process of your experience, reflecting upon what you knew about your writing when you entered the course, what you learned throughout your work in the course, and how you will continue to develop as a writer and reader in the future.

· Focus on your own work and on the insights that you have developed about your writing process.

· Provide evidence: back up your analysis of what you have learned with discussions, quotations, and examples from all of your writing this semester.

Grade Distribution: (Content- analysis of prior works/learning experiences: 40 points; organization- 25; introduction and conclusion 15; thesis 10; grammar and mechanics 10).