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Nicole Figulski

ENC1102

22 November 2021

Self-Assessment

At the beginning of this class, I had just completed ENC1101. I had learned a lot about

writing and myself in that class and was unsure what to expect from this one. This class was

writing-heavy and would take a lot of time to complete. However, each assignment was vital in

progressing me towards becoming a better writer. Each week I was presented with new articles

to read and analyze. An example of this includes learning what rhetoric is in author Doug

Downs’ article “Making Sense of Human Interaction and Meaning Making”. This helped define

rhetoric to me as an interaction between writers. There were many other texts of a similar nature

that I was able to connect to one another and see the process of writing form. Replying to peers

also helped continue the conversation and expand on ideas I had not thought of myself. This was

highlighted in peer-reviews. These assignments allowed me to reflect not only on my own

writing, but on the perspective of the audience. Peer-reviewing forced me to look outside of

myself and try to understand writing without the prior knowledge I had. I had to make sure

everything was explained in a way so that a total stranger could read my paper and understand

my argument.

ENC1102 assisted me in refining my research process. From the beginning, the texts

assigned for us to analyze covered the process of researching and writing. This put me in the

correct mindset to start looking for useful articles once I had decided my topic. Being a

psychology major, I knew I wanted to research in that field seeing as I am most passionate about
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it. The research dossier was a great assignment for me, because it helped me define what exactly

I wanted to research and how I wanted to present it.

There were outcomes of this class that I, as a student, were expected to meet. The first

one was that 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

was able to demonstrate this throughout the semester by completing discussion posts and

rhetorically analyzing sources for my research paper. Each week I was presented with different

essays such as Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts” where I had to conceptualize the text. That

text in particular stood out to me because of its’ message. The point of her essay was to say that

first drafts are not meant to be perfect. Rather, they should be far from that. This is something I

had struggled with for years, because I had always wanted my first draft to be my last. I did not

enjoy writing, so I wanted to spend as little time as I could doing so. If I could have a perfect

first draft, I would not need to revise it. That, however, is never the case and there is always

room for revision.

The second outcome of the class was that students will engage in a recursive, inquiry-

based writing and research process that is meaningful for a specific community. I did this

through my research paper. My research was on how the Covid-19 pandemic impacted the

mental health of students. This is incredibly important to the psychology field and will impact

studies from 2020 and on. Mental health is very important and with the many environmental

changes of Covid-19, it seriously impacted the mental health of students. Anxiety and depression

rates went up, and students lost motivation. This will be very impactful for the psychology

community.
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The next outcome was students will be able to interpret their research findings in order to

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

did this through my research paper. I spent months collecting sources that would help my

argument that Covid-19 worsened the mental health of students. I showed this through my

rhetorical analysis and then in my paper. One source that was very helpful to me was “Coping

with COVID” by S.E. Munsell. This source helped me show the worsening mental states of

students, their initial reactions to the pandemic, and how they were coping with it. This was a

very beneficial article, and also the article I chose for my rhetorical analysis. I spent a lot of time

interpreting this article, and using it to help my argument for the psychology community.

The final outcome of ENC1102 was students will examine their own conceptions of

writing and research in response to their inquiry, reading, and writing throughout the course.

This outcome I will now do through my self-assessment. At the beginning of the class, I was

warming up to writing, but still not a big fan of it. While I still do not like writing, I have learned

how to do it well. This started through smaller assignments, discussion posts, where I would read

and analyze a text. At first these assignments seemed hard and tedious, but as time went on, I

became better at analyzing them, and could see the connections between the different texts. A

big challenge for me was the research article. I could not find many sources at first, and I was not

sure what perspectives I wanted to use. Eventually I was able to choose my perspectives and find

sources, but I felt like I was behind. Once I started really analyzing the literature I had chosen, I

felt a lot better. The discussion posts definitely facilitated this.

While I am still learning how to be a better writer, this class really helped me. It opened a

door for me to start practicing APA styled formatting, and I was able to research a topic in my

own field. I still am not fully comfortable writing conclusions, however that will only get better
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with practice. The articles I analyzed in the beginning of ENC1102 will be ones that I go back to

in the future as I write more essays. I am not a perfect writer, but I am a better one than I was in

August.