To what extent have I achieved the course learning objectives? In what ways have my perceptions on what writing is and does evolved this semester? This essay will thus provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate how you’ve developed as a writer this semester and will serve as an introduction to your Portfolio.
Over the course of the semester, we have been working toward the completion of assignments that have tested and improved our knowledge on eight objectives. The objectives are as followed: acknowledge your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources, and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility; enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment; negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation; develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes; engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond; formulate and articulate a stance through and in your writing; practice using various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects; and strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources). This essay will share my thoughts on what I have observed, learned and achieved as a writer in Professor Stemberg’s technical writing class Spring semester 2022.
The study of linguistics is the study of human languages. As a multicultural classroom, it was very easy to detect the differences in the way my classmates expressed themselves in discussions. Although all of us spoke English, accent barriers and speaking conditions made the way each person expressed their ideas unique. I noticed one of my classmates had a speaking problem in the way he consistently stuttered. Others had very strong accents that were emphasized during class discussions. Another way I was able to observe the way my classmates expressed themselves through language including myself was through the discussion post, which served as an extension of the class except through an online forum where we shared our opinions on textbooks readings, peer-reviewed assignments and much more. Professor Stemberg assigned us every so often discussion post that were to be answered based on certain textbook chapters. Writing wise, some of my peers wrote in long sentences while others summed up their thoughts in a few, simple sentences.
Throughout the course, we were expected to peer assess each other’s work and provide feedback in the form of comments. Many of individuals who responded to my discussion post agreed with me, asked follow-up questions, or offered encouraging remarks. This assured me that my ideas were on the proper path. Alagracia, in particular, peer evaluated my work three times and each time she asked me a new question to explore. This gave me confidence that others were interested in my work and encouraged me to participate more actively in future papers.
The technical description paper in particular helped me to better my audience communication. As a nursing major, I chose a blood draw method to demonstrate how it is done in a medical context step by step. In my self-reflection, I mentioned that the approach I had previously addressed my audience was not the best because I was unfamiliar with the technicalities. The target audience for this study are people who are unfamiliar with the method. This pushed me to study the writing materials numerous times in the hopes of being able to follow the process as one of them. Moreover, the infographic assignment helped me as well to master this objective. The audience behind the infographic was college individuals, healthcare professionals and those that have licenses to practice anything public safety related.
Objective number four states develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes which took place in the form of peer reviewed work. The modification of the draft also known as the editing phase is considered the peer reviewing, where I provided several suggestions for one of my peer paper on the airpod max. I was able to engage in research, discussion board posts, canva website and now the CUNY academic commons site , all which are considered multimodal expressions. In order to locate my sources for the research projects, I used the Hostos database and the library help resources. I find that the librarian knows best and their suggestions always lead to the strongest of sources.
Overall, I will take away many things from this course, including audience, research methodologies, and more. I liked how the professor would break down the topic in class by showing us demos and engaging us in active conversations. As a writer, I learned to put more emphasis of what my words can mean to my intended audience. The textbook helped me a lot with the writing process and how to simplify my work by developing an effective, time-saving organization structure.
