Reflections

Describe your thoughts or past experiences for each of these...

1. What advice or “rules” about writing have you been given in the past?  List or describe as many “dos” and “don’ts” as you can think of.  Where did these come from?

Correct grammar and punctuation, no run-on sentences, use MLA format, 5 sentence paragraphs. I learned this all from past teachers.

2. What do you think “good writing” is like?  Or what does a “good writer” do?  Describe that writing or writer.

Good writing keeps the reader engaged and wanting to read more. A good writer puts their unique style into their writing,     making it different from anyone else's. 

3. What types of writing assignments have you worked on most recently in school, in all of your classes?

The most recent writing assignments I worked on were essay 2 for comp and research papers for a couple of other classes.

4. What do you expect writing for the next couple of years in college to be like, especially compared to your past experiences?  What concerns do you have about writing in college or for this course?

I expect writing to be harder throughout the next few years. I find it difficult to find information for papers that are supposed to be 5-8 pages long. After the first couple of pages, I lose track or have a hard time coming up with more ideas. 

Core Value I. Writing is a practice that involves a multi-stage, recursive and social process.

Writing is a process that involves multiple stages and that does not always follow a linear path.  In other words, we don’t read, write, and revise once and in that exact order; rather, we engage in a variety of activities at multiple points as we compose a text. These activities include but are not limited to reading, generating and discussing ideas, researching, drafting, reviewing and sharing our work, reflecting, and revising, and they can take place through a variety of technologies and tools. Many of these activities require you to discuss your work with others—your peers, your instructor, and potentially people outside the class—to both give and receive feedback. In this way, writing is a social experience, one that depends on open-minded collaboration that respects identity and language differences and how these shape the way we write and read.

What you need to be able to do and demonstrate for Core Value I:

• You can demonstrate perseverance and openness in developing your ideas and writing across time.

• You can use reading and composing processes as a way to think, to discover, and to explore ideas, and you recognize this as a necessary writing practice.

• You can identify an awareness for multiple writing processes, resources, and technologies/tools, and how to effectively apply them to various writing situations.

• You can provide respectful feedback to others and demonstrate responsiveness to readers’ feedback through reflection and revision.

• You can distinguish between local and global revision as a reader and a writer, and you practice these at appropriate points in the revision process.

• You can identify where to go, what to ask, and what to do at various stages in the writing process for feedback and support.

Questions: 

1. Summarize the Core Value and identify how familiar the concepts of the Core Value are to you from previous experiences (it’s OK if it’s radically different in some way!)

This core value explains that it is important to accept constructive criticism in your writing so you can better it. It's important to stay open-minded to new ideas and opinions from other people. It is also important to be able to give constructive criticism or advice on other's work while remaining respectful. This core value also says that when you are writing there doesnt need to be a specific set of steps you follow in order, it is okay to go out of order. I am familiar with these concepts, in high school we did a lot of peer-reviewed work and would take/advise on pieces of work. 

2. Write a paragraph in which you reflect on where you have previously worked with the skills outlined within the Core Value and any that you would like to work on more.

Whenever I write a piece of work I always have someone look over it to tell me what I can fix or improve on. I find that this helps me feel more confident in my work because I have more than one opinion on it. I would like to work on asking my teachers for help more often, I don't do this as much as I should because I want to bother my teacher. 

3. Also, write a paragraph in which you reflect on where you worked with the skills outlined within the value in this class. Illustrate your ideas with clear, concrete examples from your experience in the course and where you (or another author) or we as a class used the concepts of the core value and why it was important to do so. Be specific!

After writing my first essay I was told I needed to work on transitions into interviews within my work. I did not know I needed to work on this so I am very glad I was told so I could fix it in essay 2. I was able to fix my mistake and learn from it which is important.

4. Write a few sentences detailing the real-world application of the Core Value. Consider: outside of a writing classroom, what worth does this Core Value have? How do you imagine using concepts you have developed and the core value in the future (this could be in your personal life, academic work in college, or in your profession/career later)?

Being able to accept constructive criticism is necessary in any aspect of life. Specifically with the way you treat others, sometimes we have bad days and just need someone to tell us. Being able to accept this will allow you to fix it and move forward. 

Core Value II. Close and critical reading/analysis is necessary for listening to and questioning texts, arriving at a thoughtful understanding of those texts, and joining the academic and/or public conversations represented by those texts.

Writers create texts to communicate ideas, and they make specific compositional choices in their writing to achieve their goals. These choices are in terms of language, materials/mediums (physical and/or digital), and other compositional elements, including typography, layout, design, images, sound, editing, and more.  As readers, we must analyze these elements to determine the authors’ meanings, as well as the ideologies that have shaped the ideas and how they are expressed/presented through texts.  Readers engage with texts not only to understand their meanings and listen to other authors but also to question them.  By engaging with multiple authors during the reading and writing processes, and by constructing relationships among texts, you will discover and create “conversations” to join by working with and adding to those authors’ ideas.

What you need to be able to do and demonstrate for Core Value II:

• You can read texts closely to interpret and understand writers’ messages, and read texts critically to evaluate, critique, and question those messages and how they are constructed, including their use of language.

• You can recognize or trace how ideas emerge and combine to create meaning in others’ texts as well as your own.

• You can analyze and synthesize ideas across multiple texts, exploring issues or questions, so as to develop your own ideas and enter into an existing conversation.

• You can read texts with a writerly eye so as to identify and evaluate an author’s compositional choices and strategies for communication.

• You recognize that writers compose through a variety of modes--alphabetic, visual, multimedia, print, and digital-- and that a writer’s chosen mode (or combination of modes) is inherently interconnected with their message.

Questions:

1. Summarize the Core Value and identify how familiar the concepts of the Core Value are to you from previous experiences (it’s OK if it’s radically different in some way!)

This core value explains that it is important to be able to read the author's writing style through many different aspects. By doing so we are able to make connections, come up with questions, and understand the author's meaning. I am familiar with these concepts, specifically in college composition we didn't just focus on the writing but also the pictures and the author's style to find meaning.

2. Write a paragraph in which you reflect on where you have previously worked with the skills outlined within the Core Value and any that you would like to work on more.

I have worked with these skills in my Medicine and Literature class, in this class, we look at the author's writing style and background to find meaning in texts. I would like to work more on using pictures to find the meaning in stories.

3. Also, write a paragraph in which you reflect on where you worked with the skills outlined within the value in this class. Illustrate your ideas with clear, concrete examples from your experience in the course and where you (or another author) or we as a class used the concepts of the core value and why it was important to do so. Be specific!

I have worked with these skills when reading the article “The Day I Ate Everything I Wanted.” As a class, we looked at the pictures and took the author's writing style into account when answering questions. By doing so it helped me better understand the author and why she was writing the story.

4. Write a few sentences detailing the real-world application of the Core Value. Consider: outside of a writing classroom, what worth does this Core Value have? How do you imagine using concepts you have developed and the core value in the future (this could be in your personal life, academic work in college, or in your profession/career later)?

This core value is important for many college assignments. Being able to use different sources and aspects within a text to find meaning is important because everything varies from class to class.