Reflection

This portfolio contains the two writing projects that I have worked on throughout the ten

weeks of the Spring 2022 quarter and this reflection. The first writing project (WP 1) displays

the use of genre and genre translation from an academic journal article to another genre. For my

first writing project, I read an academic article about standardized testing and how it is harmful

to students and does not improve our education system. After reading this article, I translated it

into one, long Facebook post. I had to limit the amount of information that I included because the

conventions of a Facebook post require that they are not more than a couple paragraphs long.

After translating the article, I wrote a reflection, looking back on the project. The second writing

project (WP 2) focuses on the synthesis of information from six academic journal articles within

a discourse community and displaying the conversation among numerous authors. I started by

choosing a topic that I am interested in, then I found articles that were generally about that topic,

which was how ESL students learn. I eventually finalized my research question then proceeded

to narrow down the number of articles that I had, and I read the remaining six articles. I figured

out where there were similarities and differences in the authors’ ideas, then I wrote my

conversation piece.

On the first day of class, the professor asked everyone why they were taking the class.

My response was that I wanted to improve my writing and that the class was required, so I had to

take it. Personally, I think I have accomplished that goal and learned more about writing over the

ten weeks of this class. The main topics that I learned in this class were genre, genre translation,

discourse community, and synthesis. Similarly, an important skill that I learned while taking this

class was how to read and understand academic journal articles because one assignment (the

second writing project) instructed us to read six academic articles from a discourse community
and synthesize the information into a conversation. An assigned reading called “Reading Games:

Strategies for Reading Scholarly Articles” by Karen Rosenberg explained how to read academic

articles and the second writing project gave us the opportunity to practice this skill. Since I had

to read six articles, I improved in the speed at which I could go through the articles, and instead

of taking a couple days to read the heavy article, I was able to take a few hours max, which I

think is a big improvement. Synthesis is an important skill that I worked on and improved in this

class through synthesizing six academic articles in the second writing project.

Throughout the course, I improved a lot. As I wrote in my Week Ten Discussion Forum

Post, I think I improved my writing skills due to practicing writing through the numerous

discussion posts, project builders, and writing projects along with receiving feedback from both

my peers and the professor. I think the combination of feedback and practice can help anyone

become a great writer as long as they want to improve. Receiving feedback, from my

perspective, was scary at first because I did not particularly enjoy the thought of other people

criticizing my writing. However, peer feedback was helpful to me because it allowed me to read

other students' writing and understand where I was at while also helping a classmate, and I

received comments about my writing. I think I received peer feedback that was helpful to me and

allowed me to improve my writing before turning in the final draft (the assignment not the actual

final draft). Similarly, receiving feedback from the professor was helpful as well. She pointed out

important mistakes that I made and explained to me why it was wrong and how to fix it. The

importance of feedback ties in with the importance of practice; using the feedback from my peers

and professor, I learned from past mistakes and applied the solutions to my writing, making

myself more aware of my mistakes. Writing and reading is important in improving writing skills
because reading teaches while writing is the practice and application of what was learned while

reading.

I think I have improved a lot throughout this quarter, so it makes sense to discuss my

strengths and weaknesses as a writer. I think my biggest strengths as a writer are my grammar

and my inner critic. I like to think that I know my grammar rules well. Personally, being

grammatically correct is important, especially for my own writing, because I want to convey my

credibility and ethos to anyone who reads my writing. Similarly, I think I am critical of my

writing and can recognize when something sounds off or needs improvement. However, I get

frustrated when I don’t know how to fix the issue, so I will sit on it until I can figure out a better

way to convey my ideas. Some things that I can improve on are my first drafts and clearly

conveying my ideas. The first skill that I need to improve on is my first draft writing. In Anne

Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts,” Lamott explains the importance of first drafts where the writer

dumps all of their ideas onto the page and sorts out the ideas during the revision stage. I make the

common mistake of attempting to merge the first draft and revision stages together while writing

my first draft. The best way to fix this mistake is to simply slow down my writing process and

force myself to write down all of my ideas rather than limiting the possibilities. The other main

issue that I have is not clearly conveying my ideas. In past quarters, I wrote papers for my

classes, and the TA that graded my paper commented about something that I thought I included

in my paper. It was frustrating for me to receive those comments because I knew the information

but did not communicate that clearly enough. The way for me to fix this issue is by simply

revising my papers more and carefully rereading them, and I need to focus on the main idea to

ensure that I do not stray from the topic. I am glad that I took this class and I feel grateful to my

professor, who taught me a lot about writing and helped me improve my writing skills.
 Works Cited

Lamott, Anne. "Shitty First Drafts.” Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers. Ed. by

Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s,

2005: 93-96.

Rosenberg, Karen. “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Articles.” Writing

Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 2, 2011.