Essay Assignment: Write a typed, 3-5 page self-analysis essay in which you discuss different pieces of your writing this semester, focusing on positive and negative attributes of your writing and the process of development. Discuss the different pieces of the essays: the introductions, the body development, the conclusions, and the research process. The analysis should also include an explanation of how your work in the portfolio demonstrates practice with summary and paraphrase, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis and how that practice affected your progress on the course objectives of critical thinking, communication, and personal responsibility. In the conclusion, mention how the portfolio illustrates your introduction to, progress, and preparation for the next step in your college career.
Step 1: Find evidence of strengths and weaknesses. This semester, you have kept all of your writing for this course. Take some time now to read through your essays, looking for strengths (areas you have developed as a writer) and weaknesses (areas needing more development). Jot down the patterns you identify along with evidence from your writing. Patterns in writing can include sentence structure, word choices, word phrases, organizational styles, grammatical and mechanical constructs, and research styles. Find evidence from all graded, formal essays. You may also refer to some informal assignments, but the majority of your evidence should come from your formal work.
Step 2: Reflect on your writing as a whole. Aim for an honest self-assessment that highlights your strengths and weaknesses. To support your claims, provide evidence by directing the reader to specific pages and passages from the essays in your portfolio. At least once, refer directly to the final, revised version of an essay or your “optional” revised essay to point out how you tried to address your weaknesses. Finally, comment briefly on how you plan to apply the knowledge and skills you developed in this class to future classes and/or your career.
A. Suggested Organizational Plan: The reflective self-analysis is your final piece of formal writing for the course and should showcase the best of your abilities as an academic writer. Implement the skills you have developed during the semester: clarity, coherence, organization, development, use of evidence, MLA or APA formatting, and careful proofreading.
I. Introduction: Your introduction should contain an analytical thesis that evaluates how well you met the course objectives. Perhaps discuss briefly your writing experience and the process you have experienced up to now, the end of formal writing instruction for many. The thesis should discuss your strengths and weaknesses and include a comment on your achievements.
II. Body
A. Based on the patterns you notice in the pieces you included in your portfolio, discuss, in the order you deem logical, your-
1. Strengths/improvements: Identify 2-3 strengths you have observed in your writing.
What do you consider your greatest strength as a writer? Why? Support your points with specific evidence (2-3 examples each) from your written work.
2. Challenges/struggles: Identify 2-3 areas in which you need improvement. What do you consider your greatest challenge as a writer? Why? Support your position with specific evidence (2-3 examples) from your written work. What strategies can you use to address these challenges? (If you have not yet done so, refer specifically to a revised essay).
III. Conclusion
A. Discuss what your progress this semester reveals about you as a writer, student, researcher and critical thinker.
B. Suggest how you can apply the knowledge and skills you developed in this class to future classes and/or to your career.
B. Tips:
• In developing your thesis, consider the following course objectives. You do not have to address all of these points; rather, pick the most significant points that emerge from your own writing:
• Critical thinking skills
• How does your writing demonstrate your understanding of how to analyze and evaluate rhetorical situations (i.e. audience and purpose) and how to develop innovative ways to address those situations through writing?
• How does your writing demonstrate knowledge of how processes of evaluating, selecting, and synthesizing evidence from sources responsibly are important steps in writing?
• Communication skills
• How does your writing show that you can organize and express explanations and ideas effectively?
• How does your writing show that you can organize an explanatory or analytical paper (e.g., transitions and arrangement of paragraphs)?
• How does your writing demonstrate your ability to use Standard American English (e.g., grammar and mechanics, proofreading)?
• How does your writing demonstrate your use of effective style (e.g., appropriate tone, diction, and sentence structure)?
• Personal Responsibility
• How does your writing demonstrate your commitment to the writing process (e.g., prewriting, drafting, peer review, revision) and ability to meet deadlines?
• How does your writing show your awareness of using sources ethically (e.g., summarizing fairly and avoiding plagiarism by giving proper credit to sources using MLA/APA style)?
Contents of the Portfolio
Your final portfolio should contain a table of contents, your reflection essay, all other written pieces you cite as evidence, and a works cited page.
• “Evidence” means any piece of writing to which your reflection essay refers (this should include all formal, graded writing and any other writing you mention in the analysis essay); if you do not directly refer to a piece of writing, do not include it in the final portfolio.
• The optional “revised” essay means to select one graded formal essay that you think could benefit from substantial revision (this will probably be the essay that you believe needs the most work). Revise the essay, going beyond mere surface editing (correcting typos and grammar errors) to making meaningful changes to content. Content changes might include integrating additional sources, reorganizing paragraphs and smoothing transitions, or rewriting sections for clarity. Highlight the revisions in the printed version and include both copies of the papers in the portfolio. Explain the revision process you used and how it is evidence of your progress as a writer.
• The works cited page will list all the pieces of writing that are included in the portfolio. You will cite yourself throughout the essay, following MLA in-text citation guidelines, and the works cited page should follow MLA guidelines for “Citing multiple works by the same author.” The following information from the Purdue Owl provides an example of both:
Citing multiple works by the same author in-text
If you cite more than one work by a particular author, include a shortened title for the particular work from which you are quoting to distinguish it from the others. Put short titles of books in italics and short titles of articles in quotation marks.
Citing two articles by the same author:
Lightenor has argued that computers are not useful tools for small children (“Too Soon” 38), though he has acknowledged elsewhere that early exposure to computer games does lead to better small motor skill development in a child’s second and third year (“Hand-Eye Development” 17).
Citing two books by the same author:
Murray states that writing is “a process” that “varies with our thinking style” (Write to Learn 6). Additionally, Murray argues that the purpose of writing is to “carry ideas and information from the mind of one person into the mind of another” (A Writer Teaches Writing 3).
Additionally, if the author’s name is not mentioned in the sentence, you would format your citation with the author’s name followed by a comma, followed by a shortened title of the work, followed, when appropriate, by page numbers:
Visual studies, because it is such a new discipline, may be “too easy” (Elkins, “Visual Studies” 63).
Works cited page for two or more works by the same author
List works alphabetically by title. (Remember to ignore articles like A, An, and The.) Provide the author’s name in last name, first name format for the first entry only. For each subsequent entry by the same author, use three hyphens and a period.
Palmer, William J. Dickens and New Historicism. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997. Print.
—. The Films of the Eighties: A Social History. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1993. Print.
Assemble your final portfolio by placing all necessary writing/work behind a table of contents in a folder with brads or some kind of closure.
