I think when first reading these learning objectives I didn’t understand what they meant or if I ever had experience with them. However, after writing the essay and examining it through this framing statement, I realized I have already been doing most of these. I think this assignment, in particular, has helped me to be more confident with college writing and has lowered my anxiety about what is expected in this course. I feel less apprehensive about the work and am thankful that I had the opportunity of a great high school education that prepared me for college.

Writing as a recursive process

When first hearing the term “recursive process” I didn’t understand what it meant but after learning what it meant I realized I already do this often. I always write drafts and reorganize my ideas every time I write a paper. I have always done both local and global revisions every time I read my own work. It was nice to find out that the first writing objective is something I already do without hesitation. In this essay specifically, I added more to the beginning and end of the introduction paragraph and I employed most of the peer review comments about local revisions. Adding more to the introduction can be seen in my Peer-Reviewed Draft and the difference in local revisions can be seen when comparing the Peer Reviewed Draft with my Final Draft.

Integrate Ideas with Those of Others

This is another skill that I have had a lot of practice with. In past essays, I was almost always required to use quotes to support my claim. I have always done a “quote sandwich” where I first give context and lead into the quote, state the quote, then explain its significance to my claim. I think I did well with this part of the integrating ideas skill, but I missed including quotes that complicate my claim. I think in the future I will want to explore this more. I think my second quote in the fourth paragraph in my essay shows that I can give a quote context and use it’s meaning to extend my ideas.

Active Reading, Critical Reading, and Informal Reading Response

In the past, I have never been required to annotate reading, only recommended to read actively and critically. Often times when reading things I have trouble picking out important concepts that I should note. However, I have had practice with informal reading responses. In high school, I did a lot of informal reading responses that asked me to respond to something or just write my thoughts about a piece. When having to annotate Bartholomae’s passage I found it difficult to find things to comment or make note of in the margins. However, I think I kind of got the hang of it through that assignment.

Critique Own and Others’ Work

This is another learning objective that I have had ample experience with. I have had to peer review in most of my past assignments, so I knew what to look for and what to comment on. I’ve had practice with taking and implementing criticism and I think its a valuable tool. This skill can be seen in the comments I’ve made on group members essays and the implementation of edits can be seen when comparing my peer-reviewed draft and final draft.

Document Work using Appropriate Conventions

In high school, I wasn’t allowed to use online citation creators and had MLA format drilled into my brain. I didn’t have a problem with this section because of the amount of practice I’ve had. My MLA format can be seen in my final draft essay.

Control Individualized Patterns

In high school, most of my critiques when writing essays were about ideas that weren’t fully developed or ideas that teachers felt would have brought the essay to a new level if they were explored more. I tried to develop my ideas more in this essay and continue with only one train of thought. I think the first essay is hard to evaluate for this learning objective because I don’t know how my writing will compare to college standards. Maybe things I had trouble with in high school are more important in college or little things that didn’t matter in the past now do. So, I don’t really know what my error types are in college-level writing. I can’t really link to an assignment that fills this learning objective because we haven’t really determined my error types yet.