Entering this course, English 214, the perspective that I had is that it would not be as different from my prior English class, English 114. As I began to learn about the course and its structure, it did become clear that both English classes would not be too distinct from one another. For instance, this course would also revolve around your own topic of choice, in which throughout the semester your writing would be based on that topic. I personally like this structure of the class, since I am able to grow as a writer, reader, and critical thinker while studying and researching a topic that interests me.
My understanding of writing at the beginning of this course, I believed that the only way that I was going to improve would be through …show more content…
A significant difference between the courses is that English 214 consisted of Eli Review, an online learning resource for students that helps them improve their feedback and revision skills. From my English 114 class, I learned that the main focus of revision and feedback is not simply vocabulary, but the overall flow and understanding of the piece of writing. And this year, this idea that I had learned was further enforced. Through Eli Review, I became aware that the goal of the reviewer is to help the writer improve their writing in all sections for the better. Factors of Eli Review that are helpful are the checklists that the professor creates because if something is not checked the writer can become aware of what their paper is missing or what it can improve on, an example is “Each paragraph uses a topic sentence which connects back to the thesis statement” and so the reviewer would either check it or leave it blank. Due to these checklists, my final drafts consisted of all the requirements that the professor was looking for. Another helpful factor of Eli Review that I learned was “Describe-Evaluate-Suggest,” a pattern used to write effective comments for someone’s writing. Through this feedback pattern, I was able to give feedback that stated what I interpreted from that section, what I believed was effective from the point made, and suggest how it can be better. I was also able to establish a “revision plan” that allowed me …show more content…
With the use of this outline, I was able to establish the crust, the arguments, and counterarguments. Afterward, I began making the filling for each paragraph with pieces of evidence that strongly supported the main point and descriptions as to why they would work. Thereafter, I baked the first pie, wrote a rough draft and after some feedback, I realized that some ingredients were missing. For my introductory paragraph, I wanted to emphasize the importance of my issue by using the three modes of persuasion, Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, however, my use of Logos was not doing justice, so to strengthen it, I added a statistic from a study done by the University of Southern California. Another missing ingredient was that I needed to elaborate more on my analysis of my evidence and so in my final draft, I made sure to properly provide background information on the quote, define any terminology that usually is not used, and describe in my own words what the author was stating, first and then relate the evidence to my thesis. An important factor in my final draft is that I focused on concrete evidence and cited them all. I am content with my final baking attempt for this