Self-Assessment Essay

Melanie Solarez
Professor Jolly
ENG-102
8 May 2007

Self Assessment

My expectations for English 102 at the beginning of the semester were that it was going to be an extremely strict and difficult course and that I would have to write a ton of papers. To my surprise, it was not as hard as it seemed due to the fact that the instructor, along with my peers, aided me along the way. I did have to write a few papers but there were not as many as I had anticipated. Since we did not have such a large amount of papers to write, I think that I was able to put more effort into them. My expectations did change from the beginning of the year; I found this class extremely beneficial and fun! I was able to learn many new things along with maintaining an easy going atmosphere in the classroom
The writing assignment that I learned the most from was essay number four; the proposal argument. I learned a lot about a different part of the world and how I may have been contributing to some of the problems that were occurring. I found the topic extremely intriguing and I liked the fact that it gave us as students the opportunity to “fix” the problem if we could.
In my papers, I usually organized my ideas by coming up with a central idea and then writing mini-paragraphs about the subject; this included what I already knew and new stuff that I discovered through research. I would then try putting them all together re-reading them every so often so I could make sure that they flowed.
When reviewing both my instructor’s and my peer’s comments, I noticed that I had some strengths and weaknesses. One of the things that I was good at was organizing my papers and making sure that they flowed. What I struggled with was having supporting examples for all of my points. I seemed to do an okay job with some of them but then others did not have enough backing behind them. I also had a problem with “writing how I talk”, which is how one student put it. I used their feedback by trying to have more examples that supported my points. I would also correct any grammatical errors that they had found and would constantly think to myself, “does this sound professional”?
Although this class was extremely entertaining, it also had its challenges; the most when it came to the research process. Even though I was good at finding the research from scholarly sources, I seemed to have a problem documenting them. In the past, we would document certain things but I would always have someone help me do it and it never really stuck. With this being the case I found the annotated bibliography the most difficult because I had not done anything quite like that before. However, I did learn a lot about documenting and also how to do a correct in-text citation which I believe helped me in my other classes.
The most valuable thing I think that I learned from this semester was how to do a proper and effective MLA formatted paper; including a bibliography. I think that these skills will continue helping me in my other classes because I will be able to persuade, inform, or entertain others with my papers because I know how to write them effectively.