Self-Assessment Essay

  Throughout all of the three written assignments, the common line drawn throughout each is the idea of oppression via language. Instead of being taught a “Scholarly and sophisticated English”, the assignments all contribute to the central idea of English being flexible and viscous. Like everyone having unique fingerprints, we are vessels that English is poured into, taking the shape of whoever it is poured to. The greatest takeaway from this class was that standardizing English in a “professional and fluent” way contradicts the overall meaning of a language, by adding limitations, we are hindering communication.

This class consisted of three phases, each spanning approximately a month each. In each phase, I was tasked with an assignment to write about, phase one being a written literary narrative depicting an experience I had with language. I wrote about how I came to enjoy English, although it was a very slippery process to get there. For phase two, I was tasked with writing a rhetorical analysis piece on one of many sources of language strife of individuals such as Amy Tan, Safwat Saleem, June Jordan, and many others. I chose Amy Tan’s work, “Mother Tongue”, and analyzed her effectiveness in using rhetorical devices to connect and ultimately persuade the reader to agree with her claims about the mistreatment of immigrants based on their ability to imitate a more privileged form of English. And lastly, phase 3 was a research assignment, where I was given the opportunity to gather and synthesize sources to create an arguable piece about any topic to any audience of my choice. I chose to look at how fluency in English impacts one’s quality of life living in America. Altogether, all the essays serve to lead me to the class’ main objective in opening our mind to other forms of English as well as achieving the Course Learning Objectives.

The Course Learning Objectives(CLOs) are nine points that this class strived to help me accomplish throughout the writing processes for each phase. In every writing assignment, many CLO are achieved at a time and the cover letters, the paragraphs before each writing assignment. These cover letters serve as a mini self assessment to my performance on the assignment, as well as bring myself back to the CLOs and see which ones I’ve addressed and utilized. 

The first CLO involves two aspects; recognizing how “language attitudes and standards” contribute to empowering, oppressing and hierarchizing the user, and being more open-minded in communicating “across different languages and cultures.During phase one, we read many different texts from many different media, Safwat Saleem’s TedTalk video, Amy Tongue’s “Mother Tongue” essay, and many more. We also had to write about our own experiences with our differing languages and culture. By writing about our language experiences on paper, we are forced to pinpoint a specific time in our lives and can more vividly see how language attitudes and standards played a role in our individual experiences of it. Also by reading, listening, and watching many individuals’ story of language, we begin opening our mind to accepting different languages and cultures as dedicating even a little time to other ideas is a first step to open-mindedness.

CLO number two is the exploration and analysis (in reading and writing), across a large variety of “genres and rhetorical situations”. Exploring and analyzing many different genres and rhetorical situations is important when formulating an opinion;one source can often be biased and two sides of a story is always better than one. In phase two’s rhetorical analysis assignment and phase three’s research assignment, we are given/compile sources to use and write about; which would require a deep understanding of the source only attainable through deep analysis to successfully implement into each of the phases’ essays.

Thirdly, CLO number three is developing strategies to “read, draft, collaborate, revise and edit”. Throughout all of the phases, we are given ample time to peer review and are given feedback by our instructor as well. These feedback are the collaboration and potential revisions/edits we could take when polishing up a draft. I have improved my draft, revision, and editing throughout the semester as the difference between my first draft and final draft is night and day to each other. 

Rhetoric is an integral part of English. Being able to persuade an audience through many different means involves great use and understanding of rhetorical strategies. Of the strategies, in our class, we primarily focus on Ethos- Credibility, Pathos- Emotional, and Logos- Logical appeals. Identifying and understanding these rhetorical terms and definitions achieves CLO number four, and was the grounds to our phase two, rhetorical analysis essay, where I decided to write about Amy Tan’s clever uses of rhetorical appeals to not only persuade her readers to think as she thinks, assuming those with incoherent ways of speaking English is far inferior to fluent English speakers.

In any professional writing career, the person writing is never truly the lone author, there are many dedicated editors and publishers who must reread and revise any necessary things of an author’s final piece. That is why in this class, we are mandated to give a peer review of any other classmate’s writing pieces. This brings CLO number five into fruition completely, as we are actively engaging in “the collaborative and social aspects of the writing process”. Attached are my peer reviews(names omitted) I’ve given to others as well as ones I’ve received from others.

For the cover letters, I often have to identify the audience which I am trying to reach. This may show how broad or how specific I aim to have my writing pieces as well as understand which audience I’m trying to reach. CLO number 6 involves the “use of print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences”. Although I have not used print or digital technologies to reach a high range of audiences, the understanding of how to write for which audience is very important. 

In phase three’s research paper, we were given ample time to research on the CCNY digital library to find articles and sources on our specific topic. This directly parallels CLO number seven, locating research sources through many databases and evaluating them to ensure the source is credible, unbiased, accurate, and timeless. My works cited in phase three’s research paper reveals my utilization and mastery of this CLO.

Although phase one and two did not require a large array of citations as well as citation conventions, I used many in text citations as well as works cited for phase two, and phase three. My proficiency for CLO number 9 could take a big hit over my lack of in-text-citations early  on.

Overall this class has been very informative and definitely improved me. I learned nearly all, excluding some of the CLOs and am proud of my writing skills development as of late. My development as a writer has jumped.