This semester I learned how to write with confidence. Specifically in how to write in a professional tongue. Before this semester I had a wavering belief in my ability to write, at least in a creative sense. I think overall I have improved as a writer and as a learner, minus procrastination (It’s 9:35pm on the 21st as I write this). I want to use my rhetoric essay and research argument essays as evidence for this growth. I want to show how and why I think I have improved in various aspects of my writing. With the rhetoric analysis essay I want to present my ability to digest information and be able to relay it accurately to a claim I want to converse about in my own writing. With the research argument essay, my ability to piece together evidence that shows me living up to the course learning objectives. 

With the rhetorical analysis essay, I believe I presented my claim well (as stated by you) about the beliefs and stereotypes of “broken English” spoken by immigrant families. In the essay I showed my capabilities to convey my story alongside another (Amy Tan) to signify the importance of my claim. I applied my evidence quite nicely as follow ups. Overall, my process for this essay really elevated my self perception. Being able to deliver a draft worthy of being considered a final version really set the tone for the rest of my semester. (wow this sounds like bragging).

For the research argument essay I think this is where I showed the most improvement. Without listing off everything in a mundane way I want to say I think I presented all the course learning objectives exceptionally well. I showed my ability to write (somewhat) at a professional level that, with some much needed further improvements, could eventually be published as an official article. I think of all the CLOs the one I executed the best was locating research sources using CCNY tools to my disposal (those pieces of evidence took me awhile to find, probably a week or two). 

Overall, this semester has shown to me how much my writing has or can be improved and that the majority of my improvement is mental rather than the actual penmanship. I know this isn’t a long essay but I wanted to say that the CLOs I want to work on in later semesters more closely would be responding to peers’ works and giving them critical feedback rather than surface level responses.