English 1120

Learning Plan

Coming into this course I felt very confident in my writing skills because previously I had taken AP language and literature classes, which I felt prepared me for the college setting. I also took ENGL 1110 last semester so I think it helped me understand the college language setting. After finishing this class I feel confident in my writing styles and I learned I love to read poetry. The poem "Bullet Points," really gave me a new look to poetry, and was a poem that I could understand and comprehend. We started this class working on our first major writing assignment which was a memoir. I never really enjoyed writing memoirs so this  was definitely a struggle for me. I never really enjoy talking about myself and my situations, but this project opened my eyes and gave me some closure on the situation. It also helped me to grow from the situation. Next in this course we worked on a literary analysis. This project was enjoyable for me because the poetry piece that I picked to write about was one that I was very passionate about and it made it easy for the story to come together. I also had previous knowledge on some rhetorical writing, due to my AP classes. This project helped me a lot in writing a more professional tone. Now that this course has come to an end I think the one thing that I will takeaway and use in future courses is the SLO writing as a process. I've learned that writing with drafts and peer reviews helps me as a writer perfect my writing and take it to the next level. I am usually a really rushed writer and I don't take my time when writing, but this course helped slow me down and make sure that I hit every mark. Another SLO that I used and thought was helpful was "research," when writing our literary analysis, we had to use at least one outside source to help prove our claim. This really tested my research skills because I thought I was proficient in it. In high school I took a research class and felt very confident in my skills, but using a college library database was quite confusing for me. After doing this project I not only gained confidence in my research skills but I also learned how to use the database correctly and proficiently. My grammar and usage has always been a problem, but during this course our professor would send me things to read from the OER book if I wasn't excelling in one area which was really helpful. One time specifically she sent me the portion on commas, and I think it really helped clear things up for me and take my writing to a new level. It also opened my eyes to look through my own writing and catch these small mistakes before I submit my writing. The reflection SLO helped me get a better understanding of what I still need to work on and what I felt confident in after finishing a project. This SLO specifically helped me in this course because there were certain things that I thought I felt confident in but after reflecting I realized that I could use some more help in, such as my research skills. Writing as a social act helped me a lot this semester because I think sometimes I can be closed minded when it comes to my own writing, but hearing what other people thought about my writing and their input on it helped me a lot with making sure that the work I turned in was my best work. In this course we worked a lot on the SLO rhetorical situation and genre because we had to analyze multiple pieces of literature before discussing them in class, this SLO helped me open my mind when reading certain texts and asking myself certain questions such as, “what is the tone of this piece, what tools is the author using, and what is the main message they are trying to get across?” When asking myself these questions it helped me deepen my understanding of the text and fully understand it before jumping into a group discussion. Overall this course was very beneficial in helping me grow as an overall writer. It not only helped me get over personal obstacles but it helped me overcome some of my writing issues as well. I enjoyed getting different perspectives on writing as well, learning what all my classmates thought of a certain piece of work helped me understand it from different perspectives, so I think the in class discussions really helped me when it came to analyzing pieces of literature.