Reflection Essay

Throughout the course of the fall semester, I took FIQWS: Language and Literacy where I have improved both my writing and reading skills. In that English class, we read various articles, excerpts from books, and watch videos based on the role literacy plays in the United States’ society. We also read short stories about authors from different countries to help us learn about different varieties of writings around the world. Before this class, I never thoroughly looked at language. I used to think of language as just a way that humans used to communicate with each other either personally or professionally. The course is divided into four phases. For me, each phases had a purpose. During each phase, I slowly developed my skills and understanding of the course objectives. I’ve accumulated a lot of insights regarding language, rhetoric and writing. I learned that everyone of us have a language acquisition device that we were born with and that our mother tongue is one of the elements that make us who we are. It is hard to speak another language without having an accent since our native language is already implanted into our brain. I realized that people can also get linguistically discriminated against due to their way of speaking. I also discerned that these discriminatory remarks can have an impact on a person’s life to the point that they shut themselves down and end up relying on someone’s imprimatur to be seen as normal. Therefore through the many course readings that we did, I was able to “Recognize the role of language attitudes and standards in empowering, oppressing, and hierarchizing languages and their users” (Syllabus 3)  The concepts that influenced my learning and writing practices are the rhetorical situation worksheets that we did. They helped me to know that while I’m writing my assignments I need to think about who my audience is, what’s my purpose and if I’m answering what I’m supposed to. Due to the fact that we did a lot readings, I am able to “Explore and analyze in their own and other’s writing a variety of genres and rhetorical situations” (Syllabus 3)

This is an image of a rhetorical situation worksheet that I did in class in which I am assigned a text and I have to gather information about the text citation, author, the context, the audience, the purpose, the author’s claim and how they support it. These rhetorical situation worksheets help me to understand the importance of knowing an author’s purpose and how it helps me to know their intended audience. By frequently doing these worksheets also help me to quickly discern a writer’s purpose when given a text and also help me when I am writing my own paper. Furthermore, I am also able to “Develop strategies for reading, drafting, revising, and editing” (Syllabus 3) Being assigned lots of reading throughout the course enabled me to form important strategies to help me break down what the author’s purpose is.

This image illustrates certain strategies I use, I take notes in the margins, I underline important point of the author’s argument and I also check what I understand and cross what I do not understand. Constantly, writing assignment and essays help me improve on how to do in text citation and work cited pages. Before this class I heard about MLA citation but I was that used to it but now I am aware of how to properly cite using the MLA format. An example of it can obviously be how I am continuously citing the course outcomes throughout my paper. My ultimate favorite strategy when engage in writing situation is the rhetorical precis. I feel like the rhetorical precis helps me a lot when it comes to introducing sources or giving credibility to the authors of my sources. I just keep seeing myself using it a lot for all writing assignments for my other classes.

This is a rhetorical precis that I did for a summary assignment I was doing, I basically wrote about who my author was, I talked about his argument, how he supports it, his purpose, his audience and the strategies he used to grab the reader’s attention. In my opinion, I feel like by using the rhetorical precis I am giving lots of information in just a paragraph which is why I love this strategy. Moreover, a way that I “Develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes”(Syllabus 3) is with the understanding of the “Charting a text” and “Synthesis Prep” worksheets that we did in class. I believed that these helped me accomplish that objective because I am a learner that needs all my information to be with me when I am writing my papers so when I find my quotes and analyze them beforehand, I feel like it helps . Synthesizing different authors together taught me how to engage in social aspects of writing by showing different point of views of authors on a specific idea. Below is an image of a synthesis worksheet that I did.

I have achieved the course outcome of “Understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences”( Syllabus 3) by participating in a discussion topic on blackboard in which I had to answer a question and reply to one of  my classmate’s answer, in this the range of audiences I was addressing was my instructors and classmates.This is an image showing what I did to address a range of audiences.

In addition, I am fully able to “Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives an on the internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, and bias”( Syllabus 3) A school librarian did a whole lesson on how to use the library database which taught me how to use the library database to find my sources for my exploratory essay and research critical analysis essay. I can now tell the difference between a regular article and a peer reviewed article. Peer reviewed articles are articles that are very credible because a body of scholars review them for accuracy before they appear in a journal. I also know that when a website has (.edu, .gov) it is more credible than a (.com) website. Overall, this class has really taught me a lot. I improved on how to write an academic paper and learned useful strategies to use when writing a college paper.