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Caitlyn Tansey

Dr. Steffen Guenzel

ENC 1102

29 April 2021

Self-Assessment

At the beginning of the semester, I went and looked at what the learning objectives were

for the class. There were four outcomes that we focused on over the course of the semester. I

personally think I was able to master all four while accomplishing my personal goal as well. The

last 4 months have been some of the best months for me and my writing. I feel as though my

writing has become exponentially better since the start of the semester, and I have also found that

my ability to analyze other people’s texts has also strengthened. I am of the personal belief that

my Argumentative Research Paper was one of the best works of writing I have ever

accomplished. I have nothing under my belt that has as much data, research, and really just

overall brain power. I am incredibly proud of the accomplishments that I have achieved during

this class and I am also overjoyed as I feel I got a substantial amount from this class, lessons I

will carry with me into my future career.

The first learning objective was “Students will be able to analyze and synthesize complex

texts in ways that demonstrate an understanding of the situated and intertextual nature of writing

and research.” I remember at the beginning of the semester I opened the first discussion post and

was overwhelmed by the text I saw in front of me. The article felt like a bunch of literacy jargon

and it took me a long time to get the assignment complete. There were two of these assignments

every week. The idea of completing these assignments weekly for the next three months

overwhelmed me. But as the semester continued I found that the jargon started to make sense.
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The way that the authors of the articles were writing started to click, and I was able to complete

the discussion post assignments within a twenty-minute interval. The arguments, and ideas I was

producing became stronger as the semester continued. My analysis abilities became sharper and

my ability to notice themes within texts, and to connect those themes to previous works was

something that I didn’t have before. I feel that I have mastered this learning objective solely

because I now have a skill that I didn’t before, and it is a skill that I have used in my other

classes as well. Below I have attached an example of an analysis I did for a discussion post.

Within these two essays there were a lot of elements that really impressed me. I found

myself getting really interested in Tiffany Gagnon's "The Disinhibition of Reddit Users"

the way she set up her research and the way she presented her research had me

wanting more and interested to see where her researched went next. I loved how you

could tell that Gagnon was interested in her research as well, and this wasn't just a

project she did for a grade. I also loved her style of writing, as most of the time when I

read research papers I find the authors to be pretentious and to present in an incredibly

boring way but Gagnon did a great job of keeping her research interesting.

“In Priscilla Samayoa's "The Extent of Influence that Genre Conventions Have on TED

Talks" I found that she had a completely different style than Gagnon. I found that the

way she presented her research was also interesting. I loved the examples that she

chose to showcase within her project. I also like how she organized the data which

allowed for her research paper to flow with a nice pace.

I also read Chad Jones's article "The Becoming of an Outsider: A Story of How the

Molded Clay Was Shaped" which I absolutely loved. The story was beautiful, the way it

was formatted was amazing, and the way he presented his life story was truly a joy to
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read. I enjoyed reading his work because he writes with a tone that only someone who

truly loves writing can capture. You can tell from this work that writing is his outlet and I

respect him and his art. Because even though he may have been writing for scholarly

reasons but his writing is art nonetheless.”

The next objective I feel that I have mastered is “Students will engage in recursive,

inquiry-based writing and research process that is meaningful for a specific community”. I have

spent the majority of this semester researching and writing about escapism and its place in

literature. Over the past couple of months, I have spent countless hours researching the effects of

the pandemic on all of our mental health as well as how reading has played a role in keeping us

occupied and relatively stress-free. I then took the information that I found through this research

and wrote an argumentative research paper outlining my research and the overall effect of

escapist litearture had during the pandemic. I feel that I have mastered this objective because I

was able to successfully complete all the tasks that the rubric outlined and I am currently trying

to get my paper published on Stylus. However the main reason I feel that I have mastered this

objective is becuase over the course of the semester I have had to revise my paper several times,

sometimes new evidence would come to light and I would have to change my argument

completly and I feel as though this class gave me the ability to recognize when something needed

to be changed as well as give me an idea of how to fix it.

The next objective was “Students will be able to interpret their research findings in order

to produce arguments that matter to specific communities by addressing real-world agencies”. I

feel I was able to master this objective because of my research paper once again. Over the course

of the semester, I had to focus my research on articles either published with the American
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Psychological Association in mind or a Psychological Association from other countries. The

non-scientific peer-reviewed sources I picked were examples of people in the real world’s

experience during the pandemic and with this, I was able to write a paper that used real-world

people, as well as people who participated in studies to produce a paper that will be helpful to the

psychology community. I feel my research paper helped me master this objective mainly because

it forced me to write in ways I have not previously, as well as focus on a specific community

instead of many.

The final objective was “Students will examine their own conceptions of writing and

research in response to their inquiry, reading, and writing throughout the course”. I feel I have

mastered this objective because I used to have these ideas of what reading, writing, and litearcy

in general were. I believed that literacy only had to do with reading, that being literate was being

able to read, write, and understand complex ideas. I had no idea that literacy involves more than

that. No idea that you can be literate in a multitude of ways. I also found my writing style

changed a lot over the course of this semester, while before this class I had a very unpolished

style of writing the past four months have helped me smooth out imperfections in how I write. I

think the discussion posts helped the most with this objective because I got to see how other

students wrote out and formatted their ideas giving me an idea of what my writing should sound

like.

In conclusion, I feel my time in ENC 1102 was spent in a productive manner. I believe I

accomplished every goal the class put in place for me to accomplish. I feel this class has

adequately prepared me for real-world writing projects as well as analysis and overall reading

comprehension. Throughout the course of the semester, I was able to see the objectives that were

laid out for me and use them to make me a better student, in an English setting as well as in a
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psychology setting which will make me a better psychology major all around. This class was

incredibly useful, and I feel like it has prepared me for my future projects.