Courtney Palazzo Palazzo 1

Professor Jan Rieman

English 1103

21 October 2010

Self-Assessment: This assignment made me look at all parts of this course. It made me realize

how lucky I am to be able to take this class. Not only because i have to take one semester of

English but also because I feel as if I will be more prepared for future classes after taking this

class. The assignment “Looking Back and Looking Ahead” allowed me to be more organized

with my thoughts and allowed me to look at how far I have come.

Back to the Future

Looking back on the first day of college I never thought I would be at the level to read

academic essays and it never crossed my mind that I would have such an immense amount of

work. I knew college would be a difference experience with more work and a harder schedule

but it is different knowing something rather than actually experiencing it. Within college the

classes are bigger and there is no one there to make you do your work or make you go to class.

Also, in college one has more freedom and one must acquire incredible time management skills.

Slowly but surely I am working my way out of my comfort zone and into the college life.

When I received a letter from UNC Charlotte saying I am able to enroll into English 1103

I was ecstatic. I researched and found out I only needed to take one English class and it would

cover both reading and writing. I didn’t know what to expect or how to prepare myself for the

class, so I actually just walked into the class open-minded and ready for work. In the beginning
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it didn’t seem like the class would be that much of an intense course; however, going on

throughout the weeks I realized that there is a pretty substantial work load. I also realized that

after this course I will be prepared for writing intensive courses as well as college readings

throughout the years. The first time I was introduced to a college essay was within the first few

weeks of school when we had to read Deborah Brandt’s “Sponsors of Literacy”. It was the first

time I was reading at that kind of level so it took me hours to get through all of it. I didn’t

understand the language,couldn’t really relate to the essay, and honestly didn’t want to read a 20

page article. After the hours of reading Deborah Brandt’s essay as well as several other essays in

our textbook titled Writing About Writing by, Wurtzel and Downs I feel as if I have completed

many of the course goals for English 1103. I believe I have conquered the goals of: being able to

understand that academic writing is a complicated, multi-dimensional task; read and engage with

academic texts; and to support my interpretation of a text with examples from that text. In the

beginning of the year I didn’t really have an exact definition of ‘literacy’ but going further within

this class I am becoming more familiar with the word and what it means.

Being almost a second semester freshman I feel like I have gained a lot of knowledge and

learned many lessons. Within English 1103 I have learned how to improve my writing through

peer workshop. Peer workshop I consider to be very useful because people my own age are

reading my papers and they can relate to my wording or what I am trying to say so in that case

we can all work together to formulate an superb paper.I have learned to like reading more. I have

never really been one to read; however, after taking this class I realized that reading shouldn’t be

a chore but instead an amenity. I realized this after reading The Blue Sweater by, Jacqueline

Novogratz. I simply fell in love with this book; I thought it was interesting how she
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just dropped her job to go for a dream. Reading The Blue Sweater has inspired me to read more,

write more, and to be more of a patient person.I havealso learned to improve my writing through

the feedback Professor Rieman gives us. For some papers, if I remember, I try to look back on

the feedback to make sure I am not doing the same thing over again and to learn from my

mistakes. One example where I will have to use all of what I have learned in this class, thus far,

is in my preliminary inquiry paper. Within this paper I must make sure to not procrastinate and to

be very focused on getting the job done. My first question was: “Does how much one reads

affects his/her writing skills?” and I realized that there is not much research on that topic and

also that the answer is self-explanatory. If one reads more his/her writing skills tend to be at a

higher level compared to a person who reads less. From this I had to think of a new preliminary

question. My new question is: “Does gender affect ones reading or writing skills?” From some

research I noticed there are many studied out there and also many debates about gender. I believe

this is a topic where I will have enough research to write a strong paper. Looking back and

looking at the present I realized I have grown so much in such a short amount of time. I have

learned numerous things even just from this one class.

Looking into the future I hope to able to listen to everyone’s ideas and take in what each

person says and not be bias. I want to improve my writing skills even more by continuing writing

in a day book and doing a form of the Writing to Explore pieces. I like the idea of having

different topics to write about it makes me be creative and use parts of my brain that don’t get

used on a daily basis. Lastly, I want to be more focused on the task at hand and not multi-

task.Overall, I want to become a better student and take what I have learned from this class with

me
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in life. I have always believed that what you put into something is what you’ll get out. Therefore,

I hope to contribute more to this class so I will benefit more from it in the long run.

In conclusion, looking back I have realized I have learned a lot of necessary information

for my future in just three months. I have become a better writer and reader just by wanting to

read and write more. As college continues I am getting use to the lifestyle and all the stress that

comes along with it. I am looking forward to what the rest of the semester brings as well as the

new opportunities I will have. Thanks to English 1103 I believe I am becoming more suited for

the real world and becoming more prepared for future college courses.

Courtney,

Great job with this paper—you really show the connections that you make between the work of this
class and how it can translate to your work in other classes and beyond. It’s also great to hear how much
you enjoyed TBS.

The biggest thing you need to work on in revision of this (as you have probably guessed from my
marginal comments) is paragraph structure. You need to have one idea per paragraph. This is a pretty
easy fix once you are aware of where you change topics. Here’s a handy resource to read to remind you
about paragraph development: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/606/01/