Eng 101 Writing Project #5

Reflecting on What You’ve Learned

Purpose:
The purpose of this assignment is to assist you in reexamining and thinking critically about the
insights you have (or haven’t) gained and help me gauge what you have learned this quarter. It
involves incorporating: (1) the skills of description to help you humanize an otherwise abstract
topic and segue into a paper; (2) the skills of analysis, in general, to break a learning process into
parts and show how they constitute the whole of gaining knowledge; and (3) the skills of causal
analysis, in particular, to show the logical connections within this process. You will be reflecting
upon the progress you have made over the quarter and the work contained in your portfolio, and
predict as to how your progress and work will affect your writing in the future. These skills of
analysis and self-reflection are invaluable not only in academia, but in the “real world” as well.

Task:
Revise two of your essays. In choosing the essays to revise, don’t automatically assume it’s a
good idea to pick the two you had the best scores on. Your score for your portfolio will be based
upon the revisions you made and your reflective essay, so choosing essays which lend themselves
to intellectually engaged revisions are best. Once you have revised two of your essays, you may
begin phase two of the project.

Analyze all the work in your portfolio to determine the ways in which your writing and thinking
have changed over the quarter, and write an essay which demonstrates this evolution (or
devolution, if you wish). These insights need not be earthshattering, tearjerking epiphanies, but
honest, mature evaluations of your learning process. Use specific examples and revisions from
your earlier work as evidence. While you don’t need to cite your own work using MLA, use
quotation marks where appropriate, and incorporate these quotations into your new text.
Remember, the focus of this paper is about YOU and YOUR WRITING.

In writing your essay, you should do more than summarize your revisions to your papers. You
must focus on HOW your writing skills and thinking processes have changed over time. Use
these questions to help you freewrite possible avenues of discovery:

1. Who are you? Why am I reading this portfolio (besides I have to pay the bills somehow)?
What will I find in these pages? Why would I want to keep reading?

2. How does each piece demonstrate your growth as a writer and/or thinker? Can you prove that
each piece does what the assignment called for? Demonstrates an understanding of the Shared
Criteria? How?

3. What have you learned in this class which will be useful in other classes or in your life after
school?

4. What grade do you deserve? Use the language of the Shared Criteria (Focus,
Development/Support, Organization, Style, Mechanics) to prove your point.
5. What did you learn about the topics of the papers? How did you learn it? How did this insight
teach you about the connection between writing and knowledge? Life? Perceptions?

6. What did you learn about writing and/or the writing process as you wrote your papers? How
did you learn this?
7. What are the strengths of your essays? Weaknesses? How have these changed over the course
of the quarter?

8. What could still be improved? Be specific – explain how it could be improved and what this
says about you as a writer.

9. What specific anecdotes or descriptions could help illustrate how you felt as a writer before
this course? After?

10. What is particularly significant about your experience?

Remember, these questions are intended to help you generate ideas. Do not organize your essay
in this order.

Format:
The final copy of this essay should be between 800 - 1200 words, in 12 point Times new Roman
Font, double spaced, with 1 inch margins. This should be the first essay in your portfolio, which
will be arranged as follows:
Section 1:
Reflective Essay
Section 2:
Graded Version of Paper A
Revised Version of Paper A
Section 3:
Graded Version of Paper B
Revised Version of Paper B
Section 4:
Graded Versions of Papers C and D (the ones you didn’t revise)
Section 5:
Journal entries

The form of this essay is open to creative interpretation, within limits. No spontaneous prose,
poetry, or lyrical kung-fu. This should be a well developed, organized essay (as always).

Due Date:
Initial draft of paper 5 due: Monday, December 1
Draft 2 of paper 5 due: Monday, December 8

All work is due on Monday, December 10th between 6:30 and 7 a.m. NO LATE PAPERS
WILL BE ACCEPTED. Print it out early.