Sydney Lang

English 110-C

12-3-17

 

Four-Part Framing Letter

 

LEARNING OUTCOME 1

Revision can be seen in many different ways, depending on the perspective that people hold regarding it. Revision has the potential to be daunting to the writer, but it does not need to be. Through classes such as English 110 where one of the objectives is to learn about how revision is a recursive process rather than an intimidating task. This idea of revision as a process rather than a task relates to Nancy Sommer’s piece “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers.” Within this excerpt she talks about the importance of writers avoiding the tendency to reword their sentences as a way to “solve the immediate problem, but blind themselves to problems on a textual level”. Sommers values the importance of targeting the structure and foundation of a piece of work when revising, rather than altering the superficial and supplementary parts of a piece of literary work. Personally when revising my own work I used to focus on the ‘local’ and ‘global’ alterations at the same time, but after English 110, we have been working on prioritizing the revision of the ‘global’ alterations prior to the ‘local’ ones. Within my written texts from the English 110 course, I have used architectural drafts, outlines, color coding, ‘chunking’ (where you break up each paragraph and look at it as an individual) and multiple drafts, to come to the final draft in which I submit. This process for my chosen writing assignment revision process can be seen on on the below link, or on my Eportfolio under the tab  labeled “English 110” and the page is named “First and Final Draft of One Significant Writing Project”.

https://slang4.uneportfolio.org/first-and-final-…-writing-project/

 

 

LEARNING OUTCOME 2

Using textual evidence is often vital to supporting a claim within an essay. To support a thesis well, the writer often needs to use evidence from legitimate sources of information. By doing so, the writer can convey a strong argument to the reader to be more inclined to agree with whatever point the writer is trying to communicate. Within my own works of literary composition, I frequently use textual evidence from other authors work to support my arguments. I do this in the form of quoting the authors texts directly, and putting their exact words into my text to support my claim. For example in my chosen piece of work from this English 110 class, I quoted Robin Henig, Thomas King, and Jeffrey Arnett. By using these author’s words directly, it gave my work a stronger foundation to build off of. Through the use of quotes, the writer is not just throwing opinions on a paper and saying ‘believe me’ but they are expressing why their argument is correct and they have backup from well known and established writers within the same field of topic. Using the words of people such as Henig, King, and Arnett gives the essay more strength, solidarity, and it is a more reputable source in and of itself. In my work I used the quote: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” from Thomas King’s tedtalk. I then followed the quote with analysis of my own stating the significance of choosing that quote, and how it gave strength to my argument. Some of my analysis is as follows: “To him this is such a bizarre question to ask, because there is no way that anyone could possibly know what they want for the future, because the future is so unsure. Much of this uncertainty is rooted in the concept that, as the individuals of the culture grow and adapt– so does the culture, at no point is either truly stagnant.” This quotation analysis combination working together gave strength and solidarity to my piece of literature, as it justified my argument with a reputable source. In conclusion, through English 110, I have learned how to readily use evidence to my benefit within my written texts.     

 

LEARNING OUTCOME 4

Peer review is a useful process when ampul amounts of work is contributed. My peer review experience was very in depth as I color-coded specific aspects of my peer’s work. These color-coded sections included: Examples (Orange), Thesis (Pink), Suggestions (Yellow). Examples were not limited to quotations alone, I also highlighted examples of synthesis, analysis, where my peer needed more evidence from a text to support their thesis better, etc. For Thesis, I showed her all the places that sounded like her thesis, so she could take all of those redundant areas and combine them into one stronger theis. As for Suggestions, this is where I brought to attention what my hand written comments were regarding specifically within the essay. Then throughout the essay there are numbered comments labeled “Comment #1-25:” followed by the letter I, E, O, or L. These represent Ideas, Evidence, Organization, and Local, these acted as a way to categorize the revisions that I suggested. After the highlighting, annotating, and categorizing process, the 150 word note was shared with her so she had a visually marked up text and a written explanation of what comments, and concerns are regarding her text. I feel that an area that I still have room to grow, would be being able to edit my own papers as thoroughly as I edit my peers papers. Having fresh eyes look at your essay can always be helpful, so if I could manage to get the ‘fresh eye’ effect for my own work, that would be extremely useful.

(Below is the link to the Marked First Draft of One Peer’s Paper as well as the 150 Word Note)   

https://slang4.uneportfolio.org/2017/11/27/marked-first-dra…-one-peers-paper/

 

LEARNING OUTCOMES 5 and 6

The piece of literary work from English 110 that I chose to make significant showcases my learning process as to how I have grown as a writer in being able to properly use MLA formatting. If MLA formatting had not been one of the learning objectives, I might have still been writing without in text citations. Within my essay, I utilized one of the many MLA requirements as I quoted Henig stating, “men and women are more self focused, and yet also more optimistic, no matter what” (Henig 203). In addition I now know that if you introduce the author at the beginning of the sentence, you do not need their name within the parenthetical citation. Regarding the citations at the end of the essay I properly cited five different sources using MLA formatting. In addition to following MLA guidelines, I have also grown in regards to addressing my local revisions and addressing my typical errors. Throughout this course, I have become aware of my tendencies to love to embellish my work with a surplus of commas, and run-on sentences. After becoming aware of these tendencies, when making local revisions, I am now on the lookout for those, making sure to properly alter them.