LaRue 1

Michael LaRue

ENC1102

Dr. Guenzel

April 21, 2021

Self-Assessment

When this class began I had only expected it to be as harsh on the work critiquing as my
last but I have come to see this semester to be more eye opening than any other. I had thought of
the classes objectives as a simple task or a static that enters your mind on its own. I know now
that the work I have done has put a lot of effort into being able to say that I can tell the objectives
that I feel most certain of my abilities since I have worked on it over and over. I have had my
skills in these 4 objectives improve a lot from this semester and I think that the class has been
very beneficial for my long run in life for the better. The lessons I learned on how to carry out
writing with a view to understand and communicate thoughts unthought of before is one I feel
proud to have been able to learn. Thinking of the objectives that I had learned from I have picked
up a few things on each of them, improving my work in regards to the tasks more in this single
semester.
On the matter of the first objective that I had encountered within the class being,
“Students will be able to analyze and synthesize complex texts in ways that demonstrate an
understanding of the situated and intertextual nature of writing and research”. I was thrown into a
whole world of confusion when the first reading material was given but had to look for the
pieces in the paper that were connected. I just needed to adjust to seeing them more clearly. I had
a very simple track of mind when it came to reading and answering a question, just to look for
the words directly and look around them for information. However when things were flipped and
I had to find the information without any phrases to simply connect, I started to see how the
writers would lay out their information. I had been thinking only of the tasks before and my own
preconceived thoughts on what the writers had made but it all became much clearer to
understand messages when I had to see the way the writers thought of directing their ideas on the
page. I had gotten an improvement over trial and error in understanding the way thoughts can be
arranged in so many complex ways.

The next one on the list of objectives I got to improve on was, “Students will engage in a
recursive, inquiry-based writing and research process that is meaningful for a specific
community”. I feel that I was compelled to only improve on this objective throughout this class
when it came to responding to my writing in a fresh and thoughtful way. With the multiple
additions and drafting along with the reviewing of each I had to look at what would be most
useful and what new information could be missing a lot in my writing. With rewriting and
reviews I had to look at my work from angles that would be brought up from an outside view and
then understand what to do about that. I think that the number of attempts that has made me think
of ways to accomplish this is an improvement alone. I do have to say that the question of my
own work has made things a bit tougher on my process but great that I can think of something
someone else might be confused by in my process compared to theirs.
 LaRue 2

There is of course the next objective that was the third objective in which it was,
“Students will be able to interpret their research findings in order to produce arguments that
matter to specific communities by addressing real-world agencies”. I feel that in my own
research paper I have been improving on this mainly as it is the task of the paper and I had to
look into the way life changed in multiple ways for everyone when the pandemic came through. I
had been looking into the main parts of the pain endured from the pandemic that was shared
throughout the world. I have made an insight into the section everyone needs to live and have
always shared whether they realized it or not. I would say that I believe I have mastered this
objective in respect to making a topic that everyone will be able to pull some sort of new
information or lesson from wherever or whoever they are. I would definitely say that the research
paper has been a big contributor to my improvements with the constant direction of what
information I need to build a better version of. I have made quite a few investigations into
understanding the lives of those that will also be reading how things can alway be connected
back to real life matters.

The last on this list of objectives in the class that I have considered ones I have improved
on is, “Students will examine their own conceptions of writing and research in response to their
inquiry, reading, handwriting throughout the course”. This objective is the one that I believe can
be a statement on the tasks I have had to improve on within this class. I had to adjust my mind to
think of the writer and reader in order to deliver messages with clarity. I also had to provide
information that could be understood and learnt by anyone who would come across to read it in
my own research paper. I had remade my vision of what the task of writing and research was
meant to do in order to fulfill the tasks in this class. This push I have felt to change my own ideas
is unique to this class in that ideas are fluid and will improve the more they connect with minds. I
have improved on myself with the objective as I came to new horizons I didn’t consider much of.

To put it all together I would conclude that this class has given me a grand tour of
perspective and interconnectivity that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else for me. I am proud
that all this work I did has been building my skills, if I didn’t see much before I see so much
more now. Looking more into these objectives has shown to me that in this class I have been
steadily changing to think of writing as a connector not merely a delivery. With the
improvements I have looked back on and seen in my ability to look for meaning in the writer’s
perspective and trying to match a reader’s expectation become reality. I also gained further
knowledge on what it is that makes my writing more understandable and what the topic needs to
be connected sensibly to for knowledge to be acquired from a paper. In the class the discussions
were always to improve our relation with writing and grasp ways to think of the thoughts
unthought of for one but not another, so that there is an opportunity to learn what more there is to
master is relaying ideas in forms recognizable the next time around.