Alfredo Quiroga

Self Assessment

Throughout this year in my comp 1 class, we have gone through many readings
and done a lot of writing with the goal to master one to all of the following concepts: (1)
demonstrate an understanding of writing processes and how writing processes change
depending upon context, (2) demonstrate an awareness of rhetorical situation and
acquire strategies for writing in different writing contexts, (3) demonstrate
their capabilities as readers of complex texts, and (4) demonstrate awareness of the
relationship between discourse conventions, lexis, genres, and their related
communities. As I started the year I believed that I use to be a good writer because I got
good grades in English throughout high school but after going through this course and
improving in two of the above areas, I can see that my writing needs improvement. To
start off, I advanced in the writing process. When I started off the semester, I use to
believe that the writing process was just about the writing but now I look at this as a
whole new concept. When writing paper 3 in this course which was all about analyzing
your writing process, I learned that the writing process isnt just about your writing but
everything that you go through to write a paper. In my paper I wrote a narrative in which
I discussed how my writing is usually done last minute because of all the distractions
present in our lives today because of technology so I cant really focus on a topic
knowing that I have so much time to do it and I could be doing something else that
entertains me more with friends rather than just sitting there and writing my paper. My

writing process doesnt change much depending on context because no matter what
type of writing Im doing wether it be narrative, IMRAD, or anything else, I look at all of
them in the same way when it comes to my writing process which is leaving them last
minute and then working on them. A huge thing weve done in this course that I believe
has helped my writing process is getting involved in a peer review in class. We read
Richard Straub: RespondingReally Respondingto Other Students Writing 16-25
and after reading this we had to state ten things we liked or disliked about reviewing
papers and were then asked to peer review other studentss works. I believed thus
helped a lot in the writing process because it let me see which areas I need to focus on
when improving my writing especially when I committed the same mistakes in all three
papers which is usually straying off the topic as the paper progresses and comma
placement. Another reading that helped my writing process was Mike Rose: Rigid
Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writers
Block 532-546. This reading showed me that I shouldnt be blocked by my own
creativity but just write down everything that comes to mind because no idea just starts
off great but goes through many stages before becoming great writing The second goal
of this course I feel like I achieved that one as well. The rhetorical situation is composed
of eight major parts which we discussed is Rhetorical situations and their Constituents
on pages 347-362. The eight major parts are Discourse, Rhetor, audience, threshold,
concepts, exigence, stases, and constraints. I believe I have achieved this goal because
at the beginning of the year my writing style was just to look at the topic think about
what I liked about it and then just write. Now though, I look at the audience Im speaking
to, what discourse we are trying to resolve, what are the concepts mainly discussed in

the topic, what are my constraints, etc. This helps me achieve a more concise paper in
which Im focusing on writing about the right things that will expand my paper and help it
focus on trying to convey the right message to the audience and keep my head focused
on the topic. Not only has understanding the rhetorical situation helped me with writing
papers but understanding them as well. As discussed in Christina Haas and Linda
Flowers: Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning, by
implementing these rhetorical situations when reading a paper, one can better
understand what the paper is about. By seeing who the paper was intended for, who
was the rhetor, what is the discourse, what are the constraints, etc. I am able to see
what the author wanted to inform us about better and actually understand the paper
when I have to speak about it rather than just summarize what the author wrote about.
The third goal of this course I feel like I have not really expanded on that much since the
beginning of the year. Looking at how most of the texts I read throughout highschool
were already beginning to get complex, I learned how to understand writing that I was
reading rather than just reading a paper to memorize information. I have always been
more into understanding what Im reading rather than just trying to memorize because
by understanding the concept behind the writing, I can learn the information faster. So in
the end, I believe that I havent really progressed in this goal since I started this class
but I have achieved this goal just not from partaking in this course. The 4th goal of this
course I also feel like I have not achieved because of myself. As the year progressed, I
was an active member everyday in class starting off the year which is why I believe I did
well on progressing and achieving the first two goals but then I began to miss a lot in
class and my participation became minimal to none at all. Therefore, by not being able

to discuss certain topics that were read about in every day writer I couldnt really learn
much about genres, discourse conventions etc.