Purpose
The purpose of the Essay 3: Learning Reflection Assignment is to allow you to learn more about yourself and how you learn, but also to aid us in improving academic skills. Reflection is an integral part of the learning process. Consider that sports teams watch films from the previous night’s game so they can identify mistakes and then work to correct them in practice. It is an action plan.
Skills
This assignment helps you practice the following skills that are essential to your success in school and your professional life beyond school. In this assignment you will:
• Reflect upon self and learning
• Apply a variety of genre conventions to the development of essay styles.
• Develop composing process for the variety of rhetorical situations.
Reflect backward on your learning: Before writing the reflection, begin by reflecting on the following questions:
• How much did you know about academic writing and classical argument before you started?
• What process did you go through to produce the classical argument?
• Have you done a similar kind of argument in the past (earlier in the year or in a previous grade; in school or out of school)?
• In what ways have you gotten better at this kind of writing/argument? •
In what ways do you think you need to improve?
• What problems did you encounter while you were working on this piece? How did you solve them? Look specifically at the unit objectives.
• What resources did you use while working on this essay? Which ones were especially helpful? Which ones would you use again?
Reflect inwardly on your learning. Before writing the reflection, begin by reflecting on the following questions:
• How do you feel about this essay? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this essay?
• What was especially satisfying to you about either the process or the finished essay?
• What did/do you find frustrating about it?
• What were your standards for this specific essay?
• Did you meet your standards?
• What were your goals for meeting the requirements for this essay? Did your goals change as you worked on it? Did you meet your goals?
• What does this essay reveal about you as a learner?
• What did you learn about yourself as you worked on this essay?
• Have you changed any ideas you used to have on writing arguments?
• What does that tell you about yourself and how you learn?
Reflect outwardly on your learning. Before writing the reflection, begin by reflecting on the following questions:
• Did you do your work the way other classmates did theirs? Think about the review process.
• In what ways did you do it differently?
• In what ways was your work or process similar?
• If you were the teacher, what comments would you make about essay 3: Classical Argument?
• What grade would you give it? Why?
• What the one thing you particularly want people to notice when they look at your essay 3?
• What do your classmates particularly notice about your essay 3 when they look at it?
• In what ways did your work meet the objectives/requirements for essay 3?
• In what ways did it not meet those objectives/requirements?
• If someone else were looking at your essay 3, what might they learn about who you are?
Reflect forward on your learning. Before writing the reflection, begin by reflecting on the following questions:
• What is one thing you would like to improve upon in your essay 3?
• What would you change if you had a chance to do essay 3 over again?
• What will you change in the next revision of this essay if you could?
• What’s the one thing that you have seen in your classmates’ work or process that you would like to try when writing your next essay?
• As you look at this graded essay, what’s one thing that you would like to try to improve upon?
• What would you like to spend more time on in ENGL 1213, Composition II?
• What might you want next writing professor to know about you (what things you’re good at)?
• What things you might want more help with?
• What work would you show her/him to help her/him understand those things?
