Samantha Santiaguel

Professor Kole Matheson

English 211C

1 May, 2017

Using SLOs in English Composition

The first skill learning outcome is to develop rhetorical knowledge. Through the course

of English Composition, we analyzed and drafted a variety of compositions or genres shaped by

readers and writers practices through the reading and paraphrasing of assigned word journal

articles. We analyzed by reading the articles and then wrote about what the article said, and why

it was important for us to know about in the course. Not only did we simply analyze through

writing the word journals, but we also transitioned between situations and contexts by adjusting

structure, content, diction, and tone. By reading the articles for word journals, we were able to go

from one topic to another different one. We never read one of the same article, which made the

class and work interesting. Transitioning from the Who Am I essay to the IMRaD essay, we were

able to write to different audiences and rhetorical situations. This is an important skill to master

because throughout our school and career lives, we will be required to write according to varying

situations. For example, in school, we may need to write an informal paper to describe out work

ethics, where we use the first person point of view and talk about ourselves, and in our careers,

we may need to write a formal research paper that requires the use of third person point of view.

Throughout the course of English Composition with Professor Matheson, we were

required to involve critical thinking in our learning process to further create essays and papers

that are appropriate for the class. In order to use critical thinking, we read through several articles
in the beginning of the semester and were required to talk about what he had read and why it was

important to both us and the following classes. This was an important process for us to master

because critical thinking was not only useful in summarizing the content and importance of an

article, but it is also useful in finding the main topics to be discussed in our essays. In the process

of writing our IMRaD essay, we filled out peer review sheets for other students in the class. By

filling out these review sheets, we were both able to find out the mistakes others had in their

papers, and spotted any potential errors we made in our own papers as well. While writing our

Social Justice Synthesis, we had to find both primary and secondary sources to use in order to

make a valid argument. By evaluating the library sources, we were able to narrow down the

selection of sources that were reliable to use for the synthesis.

We were able to portray the third SLO by working through multiple drafts of a writing

project and reflecting on composing practices. We did this by creating several drafts of our

assignments, editing and revising them before finally creating the final essay that we would

submit. We were also able to utilize various strategies for our writing processes with the use of

technologies. The way in which we did so was when we use Microsoft word to type up each of

our essays, the ODU online library catalog to find primary sources to use for our essays, and

even online website creators in order to create our own website for the final portfolio used and

submitted at the end of the semester. Another part of SLO three that I portrayed was learning to

give and act on productive feedback through writing peer reviews for our classmates, and acted

on it by revising our own essays through our classmates critiques on our own essays. We also

had feedback from Professor Matheson when we had conferences with him throughout the

semester. Not only did he allow us to receive feedback, but he also allowed us to learn more

about how we can improve our writing by requiring us to complete various assignments that
were due the conference dates. I finished a corrective assignment in which I found the

appropriate time to use either affect or effect and also found the appropriate time to use the

correct punctuation marks. Another skill that we learned through English Composition was the

skill to understand that composing strategies and processes differ across communities and

disciplines. We were able to understand this through each essay we wrote. The Who Am I essay

was much less formal compared to the IMRaD essay, because we were able to write in first

person, using I within the essay since we were talking about ourselves. In the IMRaD essay

introduction, we were not allowed to speak in first person because it was a research paper, and

research papers are required to be written in the third person point of view.

The fourth and final skill learning outcome is portrayed throughout the class when we

went through the professor-student conferences. By the day we were to come in to class for the

conference, we were required to complete a Developmental Activity. I feel that through these

conferences and activities, we were able to refine the understanding of linguistic structures,

including grammar, punctuation, and spelling. For the Developmental Activities, I chose to focus

on working on improving my punctuation usage as well as spelling. I used the exercises from

Purdue Owl and worked on my usage of commas, placing them in the correct positions in the

sentences provided. Through Purdue Owl, I also did an exercise about the correct usage of affect

and effect. Although I got a few sentences wrong, I worked through them a second time in order

to fully understand the right times to use which word. Through writing the IMRaD essay, we

worked on practicing genre conventions for structure, paragraphing, tone, and mechanics

because the essay was a formal research paper that required it to be written in format that

differed from the other essays that we wrote for English Composition. The tone of the IMRaD

essay was more formal because it required the use of information pulled out from primary
sources that we found. We were able to demonstrate a clear understanding of intellectual

property rights and applying citation styles systematically through the IMRaD essay and social

justice synthesis as well. I learned how to properly source the articles that I used in my essay

through in-text citations as well as placing them into a separate works cited page at the end of the

essays.