Amaya 1

Guillermo Amaya

Enc1101

12/2/17

My self-Assessment

My writing has evolved throughout my life in a number of ways but one of the turning

point in the development of my writing was taking the ENC1101 class at UCF. While I thought

my writing was fairly good throughout this class we were assigned reading assignments that

were entirely relevant to enhancing my writing. Not only assignments but probably the part of

the course that helped me the most was the three papers we were instructed to write. These three

papers proved to be a challenging task that required me to approach each paper differently. Some

of the papers proved to be more challenging than others but each one had their own individual

lessons that helped me progress as a writer.

The first paper we were assigned was about our individual writing niches. At first

finding out how to approach this paper was a bit difficult because I wasnt sure what to write

about but eventually I pulled my idea from when I was looking at old photos and it reminded me

of a couple essays I had to write several years ago. Although the paper seemed difficult at first it

was only a matter of time before I got into my groove and started to write in a fluent way. Before

I could complete my first paper I had to do a rough draft that helped immensely when it came to

writing my final paper. After I finished the draft and started my actual paper I made some

significant changes that made my paper more coherent. When I received my grade I was a bit

surprised that I did so well earning a 90 out of 100. Reading the professors comments about my

essay made me reread it and look to se where I went wrong and what I couldve done to improve
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it. While this essay was the first and easiest one to write it helped me understand the expectations

of the class along with how to properly format a paper at the college level.

While the class went on and more assignments were due it only helped strengthen my

perspectives on certain things such as Brandts literary sponsors which introduced a way of

thinking of literary sponsors in a way that I had never thought about before. When the second

paper was due I thought I was prepared and decided to tackle the topic with a different approach.

The approach I decided upon was not a textbook definition of the topic and included some

variables that ultimately ended up hurting my grade instead of helping it. The second paper

proved to be a bigger challenge than the first one after receiving a poor grade on it I spoke to my

professor to seek clarification and help. The second paper was about a discourse community but

my paper was about two different discourse communities and focused more about the difference

between the two instead of going in depth about a single one or both. After clarifying some

things, I was allowed to re-submit my essay. The re-submission was pretty tough as trying to fix

a paper you thought at the time was pretty solid. In the end I took the advice of my professor and

did what I could to revise my essay. I decided to write about a single community because writing

about two made it difficult not to turn it into a comparison essay instead of an analytical one.

While I still have not received feedback for it I have learned from my mistakes including how to

properly present a nonconventional idea without going off topic.

As far as quality goes the last and final essay I wrote for the class was my best. Before

the second essay was due I had started to skip class a little and as a direct result it was clearly

shown on my second essay so I decided to change that and go to class. During class our
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professor made sure we understood what the essay was about and how we could go about writing

it. The essay was a more personal one and required us to analyze our very own writing

techniques. This inspired me to write about all the things that have to be in order before I begin

writing a paper or the prerequisites to writing as the title of my paper suggests. Due to the helpful

instructions it really helped me write a more solid paper that took away from everything we had

learned in and out of class so far. Not only had missing class proved to be costly in terms of my

grades but the knowledge that I missed out on was important therefore making sure that I did not

repeat that mistake. When the scores of my third and final paper are given back I intend to

analyze it completely as Im sure even now there are things that I could fix and add to make it an

even stronger paper

Not many of my classes had required me to write as many papers as this one has so it was

a new thing that will surely benefit me in the long run. Whether its papers or understanding

better certain aspects of writing the readings along with class interpretations helped progress my

writing from a mediocre introductory college level writing student to a student who can now

meet the expectations that will be required in not only this class but future classes. The most

helpful part of the class, the papers, will be part of my writing history if I ever need to look back

and get in touch with a certain writing technique that I used or just as a reminder that as a writer

each time you write you progress one way or another. My self-assessment while taking this class

has not been one that does not depict my faults. I learned from my bad grades and given the

opportunity I will do what I can to fix it and learn from it.