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Mai Kao Yang

Professor Monterrrey

ENGL 5 Section 74

01 August 2021

Theory of Writing

Attending the EOP Summer Bridge Program and being placed into a college level English 5

course. I felt like it was a good experience for me to have before being in an actual college

course class in the fall semester. Throughout this whole process of many weeks of attending

English 5 Section 74 course I felt like I learned a lot just by being in this class. I can say that I

now have a small amount of what to expect in an actual college class too. During this 6 week

process I felt like I learned about a great amount of things that I didn't really know about that I

can use in the future English courses that I will be taking. For example I learned how to write an

annotated bibliography, learned how to use the sac state library site and how to find the citation

of an article on the Sac State library website for future uses for being a Sac State student. I have

become a better writer because I noticed that I am able to complete all my essays within the short

amount of time that I was never before and I improved in writing down peer feedback to other

students. I was never really good at pointing out what to really give out as peer feedback because

I didn’t really know what to say but after the amount of peer reviewed we did in this class I can

confidently say that my peer feedback skill has improved since being in high school. By

developing awareness of 1) develop awareness of how communities shape reading, writing, and

research 2) Explore a writer’s identity in relation to the politics of language 3) Engage in

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reflective and metacognitive processes 4) Compose rhetorically effective texts, informally and

formally, in a variety of mediums or genres.

Throughout the course I developed awareness of how community shapes reading, writing and

researching. This was done by reading different types of articles assigned as assessments on

canvas. Such as Reading article pertain back to the areas of being able to think critically helping

me being able to learned new study and reading habit skills like in the article A Writer’s Guide

To Mindful Reading written by Ellen C. Carillo stated, “Reading mindfully means paying

attention not just to the content of the text—what it says—but rather to the process of reading

itself by adjusting how you read based on what the piece asks of you.” (8). This explained about

how I as a writer can come to learn about this new reading strategy in the reading and used it to

help improve my own reading habit when reading any work. In order to become better in the

subject English in general, I did this after reading about this article. I have been using this

reading skill “reading mindfully” in most of my reading in order to be able to understand the

genre, purpose and become more comfortable with reading. While using my researching skill to

research further information in reading that is not making sense to me.

Exploring a writer’s identity in relation to the politics of languages through breakout room

discussion and discussion post + response . This was done by being able to join a breakout room

discussion. It pertains to how readers can come to know and understand a writer's identity and

politics language used in their pieces of writing because you are having a conversation with the

other writer about their work. So it will definitely help by having a conversation with the writer

so they can give an explanation as to why they wrote what they wrote in their writing work.

Since holding a conversation with the writer you can really ask a lot of questions and they will be
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able to give an answer then. So it doesn’t leave the reader questioning about some part of the

work and it makes it so that readers who are giving peer reviews have a better understanding

about who the writer is and what was their purpose. Furthermore, discussion post + Response

contributed to being able to take the information I learned about the writer in the breakout room

discussion and used it to provide feedback to the writer through my discussion post. Being able

to take information down about the writer in the break out room will help me have a better

understanding between different writers' work because each writer has a different style of writing

involving using different sources stating as their evidence.

Engaging in reflective metacognitive through Weekly Reflection Journals and Peer Reviewed

+ Drafting. This was done by writing journal reflection weekly and writing peer responses to

some of my peer responses on the discussion post. Usually my weekly reflection journals pertain

to the ideas of being able to practice self-assessment in your work. For example, in my ePortfolio

assessment called Research Paper Essay. During the time I was writing my rough draft and

completing it. Before clicking submit and turning in my assessment essay I will look over my

writing work and do a small self assessment as to what I will need to change in order for my

paper to become better so that other readers and fellow writers will be able to understand what I

am trying to express in my writing. Additionally, peer reviewing + drafting has a big impact on

me because the learning outcome in goal number three was being able to review and adjust to the

process of writing and reading a piece of work. Which also involved incorporating peer feedback

comments that were received by other classmates based on your writing assessments. For

instance, during our assessment of (in class Peer Review) for any rough draft essay to our peers.

I learned how to used the feedback comment that was given by my classmate on my writing
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work and work hard on revising my draft to incorporated some of the ideas that my peer have

mentioned in the feedback to add into my writing so that it will make sense more so that it won’t

leaved the reader wondering about it.

Composing rhetorically effective texts, informally and formally, in a variety of mediums or

genres through ePortfolio assessment and all other varieties of assessment done in the courses.

This was done by completion of all informal and formal writing assessments done in this course

because it was worth half the point in this course. While the ePortfolio was worth the other half

point of this course. I have completed all of my informal writing assessment daily in class and

out of class because it is the weekly journal and discussion posts. Also I was working on my

assessment that needed to be put into my ePortfolio projects was really important. Since it has a

combination of a lot of different essays combined together. There was a lot of rough draft that

needed peer reviewed comment on and be revised to turn in. Working on my all of my

assessment that needed to be included in my ePortfolio was a really time consuming because it

was really hard for me to revise some of my essay that will be needed to include in my ePortfolio

``Research Essay'' it was hard for my to revise this assessment because I was kind of stuck on

how I should reword things. So that my writing will flow with each other in the different

paragraphs that had different small ideas talked upon.

In conclusion, I have learned a lot by completing all of these assessments such as reading

articles, researching, break out room discussion, discussion post + response, weekly reflection

journals, peer reviewed + drafting and ePortfolio Assessments. Which has helped me 1) develop

awareness of how communities shape reading, writing and researching 2) Explore a writer’s
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identity in relation to the politics of language 3) Engage in reflective and metacognitive

processes 4) Compose rhetorically effective texts, informally and formally, in a variety of

mediums or genres. After learning about these four goals it has left me with the knowledge and

experience of what a college course will be like. So it will help prepare me for the upcoming

college course that I am going to take in the fall semester. Everything I learned in this class will

be used in my future English college course because it will be helpful information.