As a new freshman in college, FIQWS 10115 was very challenging. While I did struggle multiple times with the work, I had a great learning experience. I learned to be more aware of my writing process, not just the thoughts and ideas. While I wrote multiple essays in the past, this class helped my writing skills and knowledge enormously. From having my peers reading and helping my writing with their constructive criticism, to having Prof. Rodwell’s comments and feedback on how to improve my word choice, sentence structure, and overall purpose of each writing. Thinking about my development as a writer, I can recognize some things I have improved on. On the first self-reflection, I wrote I remember writing down ideas as they came to my head. By the time I submitted it, I had to re-do it since the self-reflection I wrote were different ideas I thought of without any connection whatsoever between them. I also learned how to identify, and therefore improve my writing, based on the course learning outcomes.  

One of the course learning outcomes with which I struggled multiple times through the writing of all of my papers was, “Develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing.” Professor Rodwell gave us the opportunity to hand in the best draft before the due date of each paper. She then would read it, comment on it, and suggest any changes that could make your paper better. I remember for some of the papers, we even brought copies of the best draft and along with our group mates we would peer-review each other’s papers and give suggestions or any other constructive criticism.  

This is the feedback I received from Prof. Rodwell for my descriptive essay. I remember this has been one of the most difficult papers for me to write. Not because I did not have any content to write, but because I was describing some who is important to me. While I was in the writing process of this paper, I got too carried away and forgot about the structure and norms of an essay. When I received the paper back from Prof. Rodwell, I re-read it and I remember thinking to myself, “how did she understand what I was trying to say?”, when not even I was able to fully understand a couple of sentences I had written. Based on this feedback I then went on to do the proper editing to my essay before submitting it. 

Most of my essays were based 40% on the draft I gave to my groupmates and my instructor, the other 60% was me doing revisions and editing all the feedback and comments I received on the papers. As classes went by, every paper I gave in would come back to me with fewer grammatical errors and less sentence structure errors, the comments would still be there. By now, I do not see these comments as a bad thing. I went over my papers and I realized, all the comments are just constructive criticism. Some challenge my point of view, some others ask questions in order for me to clarify and always keep my audience in mind. These comments are now very important for papers, whenever I do not see a comment on my paper I wonder “have I not interested the reader enough in the content of this paragraph?”  

The Course Learning Outcomes we based the growth we had as writers are: 

• Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations.
• Develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing.
• Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations.
• Engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.
• Understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences.
• Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias.
• Compose texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation.
• Practice systematic application of citation conventions.

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