John Schaefer

College Comp 2

Reflection Statement

4/27/19

At Rowan University, every First Year writing course is required to incorporate the 5

Core Values. Each student has to take what they either learned or did throughout the semester

and relate them to each of the Core Values. Core Value 1 explains how “writing is a multi-stage,

recursive, and social process.” What this means is that everytime we write, there is not just one

draft. It’s a process that involves social interaction, and revising. Core Value 2 explains how

“critical thinking is necessary for listening, understanding, and questioning texts.” What this

means is that using critical thinking can help understand the true meaning of texts. Core Value 3

talks about how “writing is shaped by audience, purpose, and context.” What this Core Value

means is that writing focuses on what the audiences reaction is to your writing. Core Value 4

explains how “information literacy is essential to the practice of writing.” What this Core Value

means is that you need gain skills that help you identify sources about topics that you may not

know too much about. Lastly, Core Value 5 explains how “writing has power and comes with

ethical responsibilities.” What this means is that when you write, you are basically speaking to

many people. You have to be responsible about what you write about on controversial topics. So

did College Composition 2 meet all of these Core Values?

Core Value 1 explains how “writing is a multi-stage, recursive, and social process.” This

Core Value relates to most of my portfolio assignments. We wrote Argumentative Essays which
was a rough draft with many errors and flaws. We then took that essay to class and were put into

peer review groups. My group gave great feedback on things they felt could use some updating

or areas where there was unnecessary content. This helped me get my paper to a more well

rounded essay. Once I updated my paper after peer review, I let Ms. Stubee take a look at it and

make any changes she felt was necessary. Once she gave me feedback, I looked over her

comments and made any changes that we might’ve missed in peer review that she pointed out. I

still felt like I needed her to look at my paper one more time so I asked her to review it one more

time. She gave me slight corrections that I went and fixed. By this stage, my paper was close to

perfection. This process was a multi-stage stage, recursive, and social process. We had to write

many papers which was very recursive, use our peers which was a type of social process, and go

from a rough draft to a final paper which contained multiple stages. Every essay that I wrote in

the class contained Core Value 1. It may take awhile to achieve but this is what makes a great

essay.

Core Value 2 explains how “critical thinking is necessary for listening, understanding,

and questioning texts.” What this means is that instead of just reading what the text says,

thinking deeper and beyond just the words will help you understand what the author’s purpose

was. For example, earlier in the semester we watched a short advertisement from Jeep. The

advertisement looked like any other car commercial I’ve seen before. We then used critical

thinking to understand why some specific ideas were presented in the advertisement. The ad used

the star spangled banner as the song and had different parts of Americana say the words of the

song. It got me to sing along in my head and look at all the pictures that make America great. A

Jeep was incorporated throughout the song to show how it is made in America for Americans.
From just watching once, I never picked up on most of those things. After using critical thinking,

I understood why they implemented many ideas or objects. This was just one example of how we

used critical thinking to help us better understand and question texts.

Core Value 3 talks about how “writing is shaped by audience, purpose, and context.”

This Core Value relates heavily on your Argumentative and Proposal Essays. When we wrote

these essays, we had to take our audience into account. Who were we writing to and why do they

care? My topic was football safety and CTE in former players. So my audience was targeted to

the NFL and football organizations. This meant that I had to be professional and use hard factual

evidence throughout my writing. If I were writing to kindergarteners then I may not need such

factual evidence because that audience doesn’t need it. Since I am writing to a professional

organization, my writing becomes more educated and dynamic. My proposed solutions require a

lot of money, time, and work. If I don’t give context throughout my proposal then the audience

will not take it seriously. There also needs to be purpose throughout the proposal essay. Without

purpose, there is no needed changes. So the proposal essay used Core Value 3 in every way

possible.

Core Value 4 explains how “information literacy is essential to the practice of writing.”

This Core Value means that you need to fully understand your topic to become a better writer.

This can be seen throughout the entire semester’s worth of work. We had to come up with a topic

to write about and eventually gather sources to help write our essays. If I had to write a paper

about football safety without any information then it would be a very poorly written essay.

Information literacy and understanding texts is critical to becoming better at writing. For
example, in my rough draft argumentative essay I was talking about CTE and wrote “This

disease is very serious and many players have been diagnosed.” One of my peers told me that I

should use names that have been diagnosed to make my paper less generic. What this did was

made me dive deeper into players diagnosed with CTE and I ended up learning more about the

disease that I didn’t know before writing my essay. After that I went back and added to my paper

to help defend my argument. So understanding a topic is essential to writing and there is no way

around that.

Core Value 5 explains how “writing has power and comes with ethical responsibilities.”

Everyone in College Composition 2 is required to pick a topic of their choice. Some of the topics

are very controversial and can divide many people. When we wrote these essays, we had to take

into account both sides of the argument. We not have agreed with one side or the other but we

had to make sure to equally include both stances. If we didn’t include both arguments we

basically choosing a side. This can spark a major issue to many people. So by incorporating both

sides to the issue, we are being ethical by giving each side equal say. Writing has a lot of power

and if it isn’t used right then it can be very destructive. While writing both my proposal and

argumentative essay I made sure to do the ethical thing and include both sides to my topic.

To conclude, we learned all of the Core Values through one way or another. They all

might’ve not come from our essays but we either did assignments or class work that incorporated

all 5 Core Values. Coming from College Composition 1 I felt like I understood writing but after

finishing College Composition 2 I look at writing a whole different way. I learned to really dive

into my sources which I seemed to lack in College Composition 1. Overall, these Core Values
helped me critique and develop my writing skills and I feel like I am a better and more

professional writer than I was before.