Final Reflection

      The purpose of the final reflection is to inform my audience of an overview of all I have completed in this my Composition II class. I address all three projects geared to displaying how they could be applied to the six learning outcomes. I also give an example of the challenges and strengths that this class revealed. I end the essay off with the overall benefit of the class. 

Final Reflection

Over the past semester in English Composition II, we have completed three main projects. There were six learning outcomes expected for the students to achieve and I believe that I conquered them all. The first learning outcome was to “respond appropriately to various rhetorical situations, purposes, and audiences”. The second learning outcome was to “use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking and communicating”. Another learning outcome I was able to master was to use other’s ideas and “integrate” them into my writings. The fourth learning outcome that I really got comfortable with was “developing strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proofreading”. I also learned how to “use collaborative writing processes”. The sixth learning outcome was to show the professor that we could improve our “knowledge of structure, paragraphing, tone, mechanics, syntax, grammar, and documentation”.  (Atkin-Gordeeva “Final Portfolio and Final Reflection” Rubric.) Each project completely and strategically addressed these learning outcomes. 

In my persuasive composition, I argued that technology is and will be the downfall of our future generations by focusing on how it affects the three fundamentals of human life: sleep, relationships and psychological development. I then offered hope by sharing tips on how to become less dependent on technology. I felt most successful when my own experiences with technology coincided with my scholarly resources. That is what makes the subject in my paper seem like less of rarity to my readers and more like their reality. When you're not ignorant to teens' addiction to technology and its effects, you do better. I was inspired to write this because of how I discovered the “screen time” feature on my phone that reports to the user just how much they use their phone each day. Being on my phone for seven hours out of twenty-four hours had to have been affecting my mental health. My unedited version of my persuasive argument had a lot of work to be done! My peer editors highlighted my higher order concern as needing to be more direct when it came to my thoughts and claim (thesis). They also pointed out the need to give light on what social media is already doing to help censor certain adult themes and protect children's development. Lower order concerns stated by my peer editors were grammar, punctuation and spacing. I went through and developed a stronger thesis, corrected my LOC's and tied my essay up with a strong ending claim. In this project I was able to really master using collaborative writing processes by listening to my peer’s input and how they challenged me. I also mastered responding appropriately to rhetorical situations, purposes and audience because I was given a set of research articles and was told to persuade my audience of something. I had to use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking and communicating in order to develop my position on the issue of technology. This project was fun but challenging because I know everyone wanted a unique essay even though we had the same resources and I think we all did really well at not writing papers that seemed like echo’s to each other!

In project two, a research essay, I chose to research the reliability of traumatic memory and with peer editing added in the variable of how it applies to the real world. I chose this topic because I had previously written an essay on this in high school but I was also in the midst of a wildy traumatic year and I felt as if I was going crazy. My high school essay supported the fact that traumatic memory is not at all reliable but that is what I was being told by several unhealthy people in life. They would essentially say something pretty abusive and then when I was hurt about it, they would lie and say they never said it. Now that I have seen a clinical psychologist and have had several people say they experienced the same thing as I did with the unhealthy people, I learned that my memory isn't completely wrong. So, I wrote this essay again because I believe that I found that yes, traumatic memory can be complex but it isn’t always unreliable as people say it is (or some want it to be).  The essay is proving two points simultaneously: memory is complex and there are few personnel that are truly qualified to properly assist a subject to extract traumatic memories while keeping in mind the subject's well-being.  I felt very strong that I could prove my point because I went through it and I knew that it was similar to several other’s stories. .My professor, Mrs. Gordiva, pointed out several missing "puzzle pieces" that my polished essay now has. Her comments mainly consisted of relating the information back to how it applies to and affects the real world. I was struggling with finding a strong relation between the researched information and current application but knew I wanted to relate it to criminal investigation. My professor guided me to find the exact claim I needed to point to throughout my essay. She then suggested I point to that claim in every paragraph. My polished draft reflects all suggestions made. In this project I had a lot of fun because my professor essentially requested that I used a dynamic argument instead of just proving one point. Instead of just proving that memory is complex she really pushed me to integrate some of her ideas into my writing. Her idea of proving who qualified to evaluate traumatic memory in a legal system was what made my essay dynamic. Of course, I had to do the research on who is qualified but the idea only came about when we were on the phone collaborating. I really felt strong in responding appropriately to various rhetorical situations, purposes, and audiences but in a very dynamic way! In this project, I was challenged with developing flexible strategies for generating, revising, and proofreading. I was frustrated that my argument didn’t seem sufficient but then I got flexible and trusted my professor who has more education under her belt and I was extremely proud of the essay once I made edits suggested!

In my third project,  a poetry explication, I chose "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas. I loved  being able to dig into the significance of this poem, the life event that inspired this poem, and the way Thomas's diction, and style of writing contributed to the overall meaning. In my brainstorming time I remembered why I loved this poem so much and it is because it featured in one of the most beautiful cinematic creations of this modern time. It is spoken in the movie "Interstellar", a movie centered around astronauts who think they are fighting the good fight in order to find a new earth for the current habitats of the old, dying earth. But they figure out after decades of traveling space that the plan all along was to leave everyone on earth to die and populate the new earth with the embryos on board. This poem is referenced throughout the movie and the antagonist is the one who says it. At the moment the true motives of the mission was discovered, the poem is referenced. They realize that in order to live and fight with no regrets, they must do the right thing even though it is not easy. They chose not to be the "wise" man, "good" man, the "wild" man, or the "grave" man. This is why I chose this poem, because it encourages a radical way of living life to its fullest with purpose and this movie supports the poem's message. The comments my peer editors made were not the most helpful due to the fact that there were no critiques. I even led off saying to be mean as they want when critiquing me! She said she found no mistakes with grammar and it was good. I was kind of disappointed but I went through and peer edited myself and found that my in-text poem citations were completely wrong and so was my Gale source citation. So, I went back through and changed those. I also realized that I had only addressed three out of the four men in the poem and I went back in and analyzed the missing man. I had to be flexible and use strategies to proofread my own piece of writing and I was able to catch several mistakes. I also was able to demonstrate my knowledge of structure, paragraphing, tone, mechanics, syntax, grammar, and documentation by going through and realizing my citation errors. This project was fun and definitely challenging to not just analyze the poem itself. Over all, I felt strong in my analysis of the poem and how I related the meaning of the poem to the mechanics of it.

Over the past semester I was able to polish my skills from last semester by finding creative ways to develop strong, dynamic arguments and fulfill all requirements for writing while putting my own unique twist to it. This will definitely help me once I start writing more scientific papers that have several, complicated variables.  In my reflection from Composition I, I said “I want to become more confident in my ability to make rhetorical decisions in my Composition II class before I apply it in the workplace” and I know I have done just that with the help of my instructor!