Self-Reflective Statement

Your final Assignment, which you will post directly into your portfolio without a deadline of its own, is the Self-Reflective Statement required of all students in Composition 1. FORMAL EXPLANATION FOR THE SELF-REFLECTIVE STATEMENT Your Guide to the First-Year Writing Program devotes a very large section to a full description of the Self-Reflective Statement, its purpose, its goals, and methods for completing a successful Statement.

Core Values of the FYWP

In class, we have read and discussed the Core Values of the First-Year Writing Program, which form the basis for the Self-Reflective Statement. As you craft your Statements, refer to the following descriptions of the Core Values.

Core Value I

Understand that writing is a practice which involves a multi-stage, recursive and social process. Students come to experience writing as a collection of practices and processes that involve multiple, recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development. They also come to understand that these writing practices and processes are social and interactive. The recursiveness of writing is embodied in non-linear composing activities, which include reading, inventing, collaborating, drafting, reviewing, reflecting, responding to feedback, rereading, rewriting, revising, and editing.  While the concept of process is most “visible” in the drafts of students’ final portfolios, the invention stages of writing are equally important and extensive.

• You can demonstrate perseverance and openness in developing your ideas and writing across time.
• You can use reading and composing processes as a way to think, to discover, and to explore ideas, and you recognize this as a necessary writing practice.
• You can identify an awareness for multiple writing processes and how to effectively apply them to various writing situations.
• You can demonstrate responsiveness to readers’ feedback through reflection and revision.
• You can distinguish between local and global revision as a reader and a writer, and you practice these at appropriate points in the revision process.
• You can identify where to go, what to ask, and what to do at various stages in the writing process for feedback and support.

Core Value II

Understand that close and critical reading/analysis allows writers to understand how and why texts create meaning. Students come to understand that writing—their own and others’—is a process that creates, shapes, and conveys meaning, and that texts represent conversations between self, other texts, and the world.  This recognizes that meaning is generated intertextually; that is, texts build upon and respond to other texts, and texts can be placed in conversation with one another.  Students explore and develop ideas by closely and critically reading texts, analyzing and synthesizing ideas so as to enter into new conversations in their writing.  Students learn that texts represent meanings in different ways in different settings, disciplines, and discourse communities.  Students also come to understand that texts are not limited to alphabetic and print texts, but also include visual and electronic texts.

• You can read texts closely to interpret and understand writers’ messages, and read texts critically to evaluate, critique, and question those messages and how they are constructed.
• You can recognize or trace how ideas emerge and combine to create meaning in others’ texts as well as your own.
• You can analyze and synthesize ideas across multiple texts, exploring issues or questions, so as to develop your own ideas and enter into an existing conversation.
• You can read texts with a writerly eye so as to identify and evaluate strategies and approaches as potential models in your own writing.

Core Value III

Understand that writing is shaped by audience, purpose, and context. Students come to understand that all texts are rhetorically situated and can be analyzed using the rhetorical elements of purpose(s), audience(s), and context(s).  Students can rhetorically analyze their own texts and those of others to understand how writers shape and create texts and to understand the options available to them as purposeful writers. Students understand writing as a social communicative act which involves the creation of a purposeful message for a perceived audience. Students also understand that audience expectations, such as textual conventions, vary according to situations or genres.

• You are familiar with the vocabulary and concepts that define rhetorical situations and can apply them in analyzing and evaluating your own and others’ texts, including print, visual, digital, and multimedia.
• You can identify, for others and yourself, multiple available strategies and options for creating desired rhetorical effects.
• Your own writing is both meaningful and responsive to authentic rhetorical purposes.
• Your own writing demonstrates the ability to respond to varying audience- and context-defined textual conventions and expectations, including, but not limited to form, format, support, use of citations, grammar, and mechanics.

Core Value IV

Understand the role of information literacy in the practice of writing. Students come to understand that the informed writing associated with academic discourse expects writers to contextualize their own writing within existing conversations and provide sources and evidence beyond their own personal experiences and opinions. Students learn the importance of illustrations and evidence to support their own ideas and interpretations.   Students will develop their information literacy skills in a digital environment and be able to locate, evaluate, select, and incorporate appropriate information to create rhetorically savvy writing.

• You can practice inquiry-driven research in the service of corroborating, expanding, and developing your ideas.
• You can find and evaluate sources to appropriately trace, contextualize, illustrate, explain, or support the ideas in your writing, recognizing that there are different types of information, different ways to find information, and different ways to interpret information based on rhetorical situations.
• You can appropriately select and effectively incorporate information into your writing from a variety of sources—including personal experience, observations, interviews, television, film, websites, and other electronic media (YouTube, podcasts, etc.), as well as books, newspapers, and magazines.
• You can meet academic audiences’ expectations for documentation of sources with signal phrases, in-text citations, and works cited pages/bibliographies.

Core Value V

Understand the ethical dimensions of writing. Students become aware that the practice of writing is personal, public, and social and thus has ethical ramifications for themselves and others. As such, students develop the ability to conscientiously read, analyze, and research topics so as to understand their complexity and ramifications and to ethically represent ideas to others in their own writing. In addition to the rather broad social responsibilities of research and writing, students develop an understanding of their accountability to the intellectual community as a whole, and to the university in particular, which includes the practices associated with academic integrity, such as accurately representing the ideas of others and acknowledging sources of information appropriately through citation.

• You show awareness of the complexity of ideas associated with issues or topics.
• You have written about topics that have meaning, and you have engaged responsibly with these topics.
• You recognize and can justify your own point of view.
• You acknowledge and show respect for different views/opinions of others in your writing.
• You show an awareness of the priority of logical appeals over emotional ones and the pitfalls of fallacious reasoning.
• You observe the rules of academic honesty and intellectual property.
• You recognize and create boundaries between your voice and the voices of others and appropriately use paraphrase, quotations, and citations in accordance with the expectations of academic integrity.

Cut-and-Paste Formatting

1. You may cut-and-paste the format below (begin below the line) to produce your own version of the Self-Reflective Statement complete with all the necessary question numbers and placeholder text. 2. Post your SRS as a new blog post titled “Statement—Your Name.” Place it in the A10: Self-Reflective Statement category and of course in your Username. ___________cut and paste below this line____________________ GOAL 1: I used a multi-stage, recursive, and social process for my writing and took into consideration feedback from my instructor, classmates, and other readers. Insert here a 125-word explanation of how you met the goal. For a fuller description of the Goal, read the description of Core Value 1 above. GOAL 2: I read source materials closely and analyzed them critically to learn how and why texts create meaning. Insert here a 125-word explanation of how you met the goal. For a fuller description of the Goal, read the description of Core Value 2 above. GOAL 3: I wrote with a particular audience in mind, allowing my purpose to shape the language and methods I used not just to communicate information but to persuade readers. Insert here a 125-word explanation of how you met the goal. For a fuller description of the Goal, read the description of Core Value 3 above. GOAL 4: I demonstrated my information literacy by synthesizing my own experience with new insights and information from a range of outside sources to produce new material. Insert here a 125-word explanation of how you met the goal. For a fuller description of the Goal, read the description of Core Value 4 above. GOAL 5: My writing is ethical. Writing about meaningful topics, I have engaged responsibly with them and represented my ideas and the ideas of others honestly, fairly, and logically. Insert here a 125-word explanation of how you met the goal. For a fuller description of the Goal, read the description of Core Value 5 above. ___________cut and paste above this line____________________

Sample Reflective Statements from earlier semesters.

I absolutely took advantage of the opportunity to edit my work; Professor Hodges left me feedback that wasn’t vague in the slightest and helped me understand mistakes I made (and how I could avoid those mistakes in the future).  The Letter to the Editor assignment was not only my first major assignment, but my first experience with the in-depth feed back left by Professor Hodges.  The specificity of the comments was highly different from any of the feedback I had received in my Advanced Placement classes in high school; those teachers left ambiguous comments that often left me confused. When writing my essays I was always making decisions based on my particular audience and my purpose.  Many essays we did were editorials, and the writing technique was different than that of a standard essays.  Persuasive work was prevalent in this course in many of the assignments we had.  Comparing many of my works made me realize how different styles of writing are.  For instance my engagement essay was much different than the Op:Ed from earlier in the semester.  I really feel as if doing different aspects of work and appealing to other audiences has made me a better writer. Learning how to construct positive and efficient method for writing papers is a process I developed during this course. Writing a plan for my essays has made my work ethic improve greatly. In my “Letter To The Editor,” I began revisions on my essay after my professor provided feedback to me. This allows me to positively alter my essay for the better. One of the most important techniques I have developed is editing my essays through feedback from other people. Listening to other writers criticize me has made me realize mistakes that I had overlooked for years. As a writer I have not only learned my responsibilities, I have learned how to be fair.  I learned that it is unfair to do certain things to other writers such as only quoting certain phrases of an entire quote.  There are many ways to deceive people by not telling them the whole truth, and that is not something an honest writer should do.  I learned from my Instructor that these are very valuable in the world of writing, and I hope one day to become a fully developed and responsible writer.  I will always adhere to these responsibilities and will continue to progress as a writer. In every assignment, I always credit sources that I directly quote or paraphrase.  In my Engagement Essay, I composed a bibliography in MLA format that contained my works cited.  I understand the severe (but NECESSARY) consequences that come about as a result of plagiarism and how plagiarizing ultimately does not serve any benefit to a student.  Plagiarizing inhibits a student’s ability to grow as a writer and disrespects the person whose work is being copied.  I always provide a hyperlink in a paper when discussing another author’s work or when I cite them as a resource. Since the dawn of writing, mankind has been recording and illustrating important events accurately and some even inaccurately. By adhering to my ethical responsibilities, it is my duty to inform my readers of a just and truthful document. In many of my writings this semester, I portray my ethical honesty by being truthful and fair to all audiences. Responsibility is a virtue that must be taken on with everything one writes. With determination of finishing a paper, sometimes I may accidentally skew information to produce the most coherent paper, breaking an unwritten law of writing ethics. I was guilty of doing this in my “Engagement Essay.” I learned that water pollution did not cause the virus killing dolphins on the east coast. I did not thoroughly check other sources but I claim responsibility for this, realizing I was wrong. I will be sure to claim full responsibility in all future writing mistakes and will do my best to follow the ethics of writing. I understand that there’s nothing wrong with writing about controversial issues, but I also understand that it’s imperative to remain respectful while doing so.  I understand that I can get carried away sometimes and go into “rant mode”, but I never go as far as to slander someone or maliciously attack him or her.  I try to avoid “poisoning the well” in my assignments because it’s an ineffective argument technique.  In my Engagement Essay, I tried to avoid blaming either candidate for their campaigning procedures, but rather acknowledge the responsibility we need to take as voters to further research a candidate’s platform. Writing is not something a person just does to get information out there.  Writers formulate ideas in their head while doing the piece of work.  It’s a way to show their personality to determine who they truly are.  Writing expresses everything that I believe, feel, and stand for.  All my views are expressed through my writing, and many of these ideas wouldn’t even exist if I wasn’t writing and creating ideas.  There is always a message to get across, and the way I shape it, is what is going to get it into the readers mind.  In my Engagement essay the way I shape my idea helps me get my point across to the reader. My essays are all done in English, but in each essay my instructor taught me how to adapt my tone to appeal to the type of audience that is reading my work.  I found these techniques useful as I realize that you don’t want to write in the same manner to 20 year old girls, and 80 year old men.  The topics all vary and audiences come in all types.  Adapting my tone to suit my audience is occurring during every single essay I write, as I know that I have to appeal to a certain type of people.  I feel as if my Op:Ed is my best example of an adjusted tone, as I am appealing to a certain group of readers.  This has helped me grow as a writer. Before this class, I was never really exposed to an environment quite like this.  I gained much more insight on a variety of topics, and political issues, that I have never seen before.  My instructor did a good job of letting me create my own thoughts and ideas about certain topics. Using the New York Times and Newsonpaper, was a great way of bringing outside information into the classroom.  This experience has made me a better writer, and I feel much better about my work, and these resources were very helpful.  The material I received from these sources was much more valuable than other resources. I realized this year that allowing others to view my work enhanced its quality.  I also noticed writers miss a lot of mistakes while proofreading. In many of my essays, Professor Hodges, my instructor, pointed out many flaws I missed.  This was very interesting, as I had considered my essays flawless. After posting my Letter to the Editor piece, I was notified that my instructor found many errors.  I feel that by getting this type of feedback from other writers, I have become more aware of different types of mistakes that I did not notice before.  This has led me to be a better writer overall. It was highly important to keep my audience in mind when I wrote each of my papers, particularly in my Letter to the Editor; I had to keep Jennifer Finney Boylan’s opinion on how student and teacher relationships are affected by gender in mind while explaining my own perspective.  Although I agreed with Boylan, I couldn’t just parrot what she had said.  I found elaborating on her points to keep my readers interested a very effective way to enhance my critical thinking skills.  I understood that a good letter to the editor, or at least one that will get published, is one that opens up a new debate brought upon by the original work. My Engagement Essay allowed me to conduct primary research on campaign spending and voter apathy.  I conducted interviews and looked up “scholarly articles” that could provide me with accurate information for my assignment.  Gathering this information helped me formulate new view points and draw my own conclusions as to not only the “how” campaign spending, voter apathy, and election out comes are related, but more importantly, the “why.”  I thought the Engagement Essay assignment was the most important assignment because it forced us to not only conduct our own primary research, but really force ourselves to immerse ourselves in a topic that was significant to all of our classmates. My tone has always been semi-sarcastic and sometimes conversational, but I know where a balance is needed in order for my work to be taken seriously.  In my Editorial concerning “filter bubbles” and egocasting, I opted to take a more serious route with my language.  My tone, while relatively consistent, is based heavily upon the subject matter and what I’m trying to accomplish with that piece.  If I’m trying to change the way my readers perceive something so deceivingly unimportant such as a filtered Google search, I’m going to adapt a much more formal tone than I do in some of my other works. Once again, I thoroughly believe that my Engagement Essay was the assignment that brought my own experiences and research together. I picked a topic that I had enough first-hand experience with but at the same time  it was a topic that I knew I could further research.  I found ProfSearch to be an incredibly useful database for compiling a list of scholarly articles; it provided me with sources that I would otherwise not have access to.  I combined these articles with the interviews I conducted and my own personal experience to construct a diverse bibliography that covered all components of my essay. Holding an audience is a method of writing I have learned to perform in my essays. In my “Critical Engagement Essay” I kept my audience in mind and remembered my purpose and reasons for writing. This helped me bring attention towards the growing epidemic of dying dolphins on the east coast. Consistently having a purpose, I was able to keep the reader reading, allowing an audience to grow. I did this by convincing people to agree that the cleansing of the disease filled waters will one day make this world a better place to live. This is all thanks to the writing styles adopted from my composition professor. In my “Op-Ed” essay, I focused on creating new ideas. Thinking outside of the box, I was able to write about how teacher and student relationships may be altered due to the sex of the professor– something that could affect every student in the world. By bringing outside sources to the essay, I was able to dig deeper into their purpose and find a developed and educated conclusion. Persuading people to agree with my argument was one of my hopes when using this method. Convincing my audience that not only the outside sources share one idea, but also the creative contributions I made to the paper agree with them was a clear goal of mine. This is a writing accomplishment only attained by few. In my oncoming years, I will continue to create and shape ideas, improving my writing each time. Standard written English is learned and adopted by millions of people around the world. The prominence of this is especially seen in the USA. My “Op-Ed” essay failed for grammar the first time I submitted it. However, my alterations were accepted and I received a grade I was happy with. With the understanding of English, I was able to demonstrate an efficient tone in my writings. This is proven in my “Engagement Essay”. With the use of proper tone and grammar, it allowed the readers to connect to my essays and understand them better, a technique very helpful in the English language. In order to write my “Critical Engagement Essay,” my professor created an assignment that instructed me to look up five sources that I would use in my essay. This enabled me to bring in a wide range of information creating a diverse field of arguments and persuasions. I found the ideas and arguments I had previously of doing research were false and inaccurate. Bringing in new ideas provided me with a more varied outlook thus enabling me to shape my paper in a variety of ways. The importance of research is usually overlooked and that produces a below average essay. Understanding the connection of my own experiences mixed with new insights is a technique of writing that will better my writing style for the rest of my life. Incorporating materials from outside sources is something used in almost every essay I have written this semester. Maintaining academic honesty is sometimes a challenge, however it is extremely important. By being constantly aware of what I am searching and using for my essays allows me to keep track of my sources and thus give credit where credit is due. Illustrating the principles of academic honesty, I cite the research I engaged myself in into my “Critical Engagement Essay.” By citing the sources I used in my essay, plagiarism was a matter I did not and will not have to worry about. Sometimes it is more appreciated to be honest than to have the best paper that is not yours.

ASSIGNMENT DETAILS

1. Create a new post titled “Reflective—Username”
2. Cut and paste the template from this post into yours.
3. Select the A10: Self-Reflective Statement category and your own Username.
4. Publish. Then update with actual text to replace the boilerplate text in the template.
5. Link your self-reflective comments to your own essays when you cite them specifically to prove your case that you achieved the course goals. For example, link to supafreak’s Op-Ed.
6. MW DEADLINE 11:59PM TUE NOV 25.
7. TR DEADLINE 11:59PM WED NOV 26.