Self-Assessment Essay
-To what extent have I achieved the course learning objectives?
-In what ways have my perceptions on what writing is and does, evolved this semester?
I thought that simply finding a few sources to quote from and then paraphrasing to unify an idea was what essay writing was about. That was my understanding at the beginning of this semester. After completing different types of writing assignments, and trying to achieve the course learning outcomes, my perception on what writing is and does, has changed.
In the my personal artifact essay, the first essay, I described my jiu jitsu belt as a personal artifact representing the jiu jitsu subculture. In my reflection, I mentioned that I needed to think much more about how to connect sentences, and convey what I meant in detail. This was a course goal, to “enhance strategies for…drafting, revising, editing and self assessment.” (goal 2) I realize now that through the process of writing, I was able to identify early on in the semester one of the goals that was harder for me to accomplish. Maintaining “rhetorical sensibility” (goal 1), that is, a clear connection to each idea so that an audience would understand what I’m writing, was what I wanted to improve on.
The subculture research essay, essay 3, is where I feel I made a considerable improvement in these two goals. In that assignment, I went over how hip hop led to 90s rap, and then I reviewed what rappers at that time rapped about. Before that essay’s conclusion, I also reviewed how some modern rap artists tried to keep that 90s rap style going. Thinking how to connect ideas in a clear way again in essay 3 further enhanced my “strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing and self-assessment.” In the fieldworking textbook, I learned of a data culminating technique called intersubjectivity, and with the use of footnotes, I triangulated my sources to discuss my findings. I stayed on topic and provided an overview as to what the subculture looked like. Even though I ended up quoting a lot and may not have been as concise as I could have been in that essay, I believe I met the rhetorical sensibility goal. Since I reviewed many secondary sources about this community for this essay, I can say I also achieved goal 5, “engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing ..”
The classmate interview essay, Essay 2, I intended for anyone who reads it, even people who don’t know anything about the gaming industry, to understand the gaming subculture better by interviewing a classmate who has been playing different video games for years. I enjoyed interviewing my classmate. In the process of doing this assignment, I improved on two other course learning objectives because I was engaging “in the collaborative and social aspects of the writing processes” by interviewing my classmate (goal 4). I also strengthened my practices of “quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources” (goal 8) because I had to write what my classmate told me by converting conversations into an essay, so this process helped me develop these two goals.
In essay 4, the mini-ethnography, I expanded on insider viewpoints of famous 90s gangsta rappers to explain where their hardcore rap styles came from and how their background infused their rapper persona. In essay 4, I went directly to hear from the rap artists themselves. Although I couldn’t interview them, because they were either inaccessible to me, or dead, I reviewed their rap lyrics, which were their way to tell their life story. I watched interviews and documentaries with them talking about what led to them rapping in this style.While writing about these lyrics which were very explicit and slang-driven I had to “acknowledge” how the rappers I was talking about and I had “linguistic differences” (course goal no. 1). One who listens to this gangsta music can think that the rappers intended to promote violence but listening to the rappers talk about their raps made me conclude that their intentions were just to rap about their lives as they were. Since I was able to conclude that, I can say I achieved learning outcome 6, “formulate and articulate a stance.”
In all essays, I attempted to explain an artifact or subcultures to people who knew nothing about these subjects, and this helped me achieve goal 3, “negotiate your …writing goals and audience expectations.” I revised all my essays, based on comments from peers and my instructor.
The first essay was the easiest to write because it didn’t involve too much extra research because I already knew a lot about jiu jitsu as I have been practicing in it for a long time. Essay 2 was harder because I had to summarize in a clear way what another person told me over two interviews. Essays 3 and 4 were the hardest because I had to do a lot of research for them. My perception of writing has changed during the course. I thought quoting and paraphrasing a few sources would be enough but each assignment had a rubric that required so much more to meet the course goals. I realized that writing is a complicated process that requires more effort than I initially thought. While I developed as a writer, I believe I still need to progress in all course goals. Although I think I achieved them in the papers I wrote, I don’t want to say that I have nothing left to learn. I still need to progress in my time management. I underestimated how long each assignment would take and as a result either submitted papers at the last minute or needed an extension and didn’t leave enough time for proofreading.
