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Jose Chavez

Katia Monterrey

ENGL 5-74

18 July 2021

My Summer Course Checklist

I have learned a few things and have practiced a lot of my writing during this summer

course. The course started out rough for me especially with having to write the literacy

autobiography approximately that first week we were introduced into the class. I also had trouble

with the research essay, but just like every other essay I have done, I managed, wrote it and

learned a few things afterwards. All of these skills I have learned have really made it easier to

write essays, review them, revise them, but overall just improved my literacy academics. In the

beginning of the course, we were shown the main goals of the course; becoming self aware of

literacy growth through experience, to depict a writer's identity based on language, to review

your own work and also allow others to give you feedback, and to be able to write in different

styles based on what the topic is about. All of those goals helped me define what literacy meant

to me, which would be that literacy is a form of expressing feeling through language and that can

can depend on the person's past experiences, their self awareness, and also their knowledge. I

feel that throughout the course I have completed some of those goals and that my progress has

shown throughout the essays I have written.

We started the course with writing our diagnostic essay which asked us what were our

thoughts on the theory of writing and our process in writing. After reviewing the feedback I was

given on it, it was very clear that I did not read the instructions correctly and did not put much

effort into it. What I mean by that is that I did not structure the essay correctly, had no main idea,
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had no thesis, and had no revision done on it. It was clear that in order to write an acceptable

essay, I had to do all of these things before submitting the essay. I then put that knowledge into

the literacy essay we did by creating a structure in the essay. I wrote paragraphs that were

coherent and made sense. I then had to revise my work and I did that by creating a strategy of

reviewing the work by not viewing the work as mine, so I can get a sense of what the reader was

going to read. In this essay we were also given peers to review each other's essay and what I got

from my peer review was that the essay was good but it needed work on wording, needed better

vocabulary and I also plan to keep on using that suggestion. Overall, I would say there was a big

improvement between those two essays by improving the length, the structure of the essay and

also applying the feedback I was given which helped and it is helping me.

After doing those two essay’s, we were instructed to write a research paper based on an

issue in our communities. We were given a rubric so we had a word count and page requirement

we had to reach, so length was not an issue in this essay. I went off the structure of putting my

main idea in the intro paragraph which in previous essay’s, I did not clearly state. When

presented about this mistake, I really wanted to make sure that my main point was obvious and in

the beginning of the essay which is what I tried to do with this essay. Before typing the research

paper, we had to create a citation paper in which we stated what our website sources were and

did that in a specific format. When doing this, I learned the placement of each piece of

information that would go into the citation and also learned where that citation page would go in

an essay. After completing the research essay, I realized that previous feedback I was given was

crucial in improving my essay. I went back and analyzed my writing, looking for words I could

improve, made sure my thesis was clear, and that my structure made sense and that it was
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comprehensive. I would say that my improvement in writing was not the only thing that got

better over time, but also my lifestyle which then reflects on my writing.

On day two of the class, we got presented with the syllabus of the class which had all the

information we needed to know about the class. The most important part of the syllabus was the

goals that this course was trying to reach and teach. Goal one has to do with how the community

shaped the way we read, write, and also view things; we did this by writing the literacy essay,

and in that essay we had to describe how our literacy has improved which was through school,

home, and community. Goal two is about demonstrating how a writer’s language depicts their

identity or personality. Sometimes it is easy to depict a writer’s personality based on how much

detail they would describe about themselves but other times it would take a reader a while to

evaluate what personality the writer may have by seeing a pattern in the author's writing over

time. Throughout the English course, we have written three essays in which you could see a

pattern in my vocabulary and the way I would word sentences and with seeing that, there can be

an assumption of my identity. For example, I use a lot of simple phrases like “ a while” or “ we

were” and that displays the effort I am putting into the writing which is not a lot and can lead

someone to think I am lazy in my work. I do take note of this and that is why I use synonyms for

words and phrases so I can sound knowledgeable in what I write.

Then there is the third goal, goal three is about revising your own work along with taking

note of what your writing process is and if it is effective in making your writing better. We have

done this multiple times throughout this course by doing a self assessment on our literacy

autobiography. We had to revise our own first draft and figure out what we could improve on;

and I did that by improving the vocabulary, rewriting sentences and just making it make the most

sense. Another example would be providing feedback to others on their essay’s. When I did this,
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I compared some of the grammar that was used and it made me realize that even after a self

assessment, there was still room for improvement in my own essay and I went back and did just

that. Lastly, goal four is about writing persuasive text in all forms and also showing an

understanding of your work. Persuasive text would be shown by using specific vocabulary to

express what you are trying to say and showing an understanding of your work would be shown

by proving that you understand what was assigned by showing it in your writing. The only

persuasive text I have written would be this assignment and so far I would say that throughout

the course, there have been changes in vocabulary and it all has been for the better. After

reviewing all four goals, I can confidently say that from the start of the summer course to now,

there has been improvement in my writing.

After reviewing all four goals, I can say that the goals that have been presented, have also

been completed and this can be seen throughout the improvements of my essay’s. These

improvements span from the beginning of the essay in which the thesis and main idea should

generally be, all the way to the end of an essay where the thesis should be restated and at times

where the cited sources should be. There can always be room for improvement in every aspect of

life, but improving my literacy not only affects my life right now, it also affects how well I

would be in my career choice and also future assignments.