Alexander Lopez
ENGL 110
Throughout my time in Freshman composition, I grew quite fond of the class, my classmates, and the teacher. As we progressed further in the class we started to work on phase essays, we have completed three of the four phase essays. When the first phase essay began, I had some struggles because I never wrote more than two pages for an essay, but I was able to do it. Phase two essay was relatively easy to do as it only required one page in a half, but it was a different type of essay, one where I haven’t hurd about, they were Op-Ed essay. This kind of assignment was different, and not different in the sense that it is hard but different because I haven’t done it. The op-ed was opinion writing and we had to choose if we agree with them or not, and then write about why we agree with that article, and why we choose it. So these experiences made me in a way better at writing compared to myself when the class started.
“Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias.”
One point in which I have progressed and understand how to use is the CCNY library’s database. This type of knowledge to use the CCNY library’s database was necessary when writing the phase two and three assignments. For the phase 2 assignment, we were required to look for Opinion/Editorial articles (Op-Ed), and after I found the one that I was interested in, I had to write about my opinion on the piece. At first when I found my Op-ed it was through google the search bar, since I didn’t know how to look for it on CCNY library. All though, even though I looked for my article on the google search bar I did find many good Op-ed articles through the New York Times. And I am able to access the New York Times website for free thanks to the citymail, but when phase 3 began I learned how to use CCNY library databases and made my searching more simpler, and took less time because of the filters that I was able to apply.
“Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations.”
Earlier in the semester, like around the first few weeks of March, we started practicing with rhetorical terms, and the different ways it can be used. The first assignment that I got that involved me finding rhetorical strategies, it was an assignment in which I had to look for a song and write all the rhetorical strategies that we can find from that song. Of course it was difficult at first as this was my first assignment that involved rhetorical analysis and the first day it was taught to us in class, but towards the end of the class I had a pretty good understanding of how to look for rhetorical analysis. So for that day the homework assignment became understandable and easy to do. Later towards the end of the phase 2 assignment, I had to look for an Op-Ed and later write a list of questions about the selected writing piece I chose for the Op-Ed. While I was listing these questions I had to use some rhetorical strategies for my questions, and since I worked on it earlier in the week, how to find rhetorical strategies was still fresh in my mind, so I had no problems looking for rhetorical strategies.
“Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations.”
This type of understanding correlates with learning the paragraph above but it is different. Because after learning to find rhetorical strategies in a song and integrating it in our writing pieces of the Op-Ed. There was one more thing the class needed to do, so that finding or writing rhetorical strategies became easier. This was that we were giving articles and while reading the articles we had to analyze the paragraph to find out what type of rhetorical strategy that paragraph contained. For some of these activities we would work together in groups, so we all can try to find the rhetorical strategies that the paragraph had, and this was useful because in the groups some peers had very good reasons for why this rhetorical strategy was being used in the paragraph. This helped a tremendous amount because this gave me more insight on how to find rhetorical strategies in readings.
“Develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing.”
While working on our phase essays, we had many different ways to develop strategies. And one of the most effective strategies for me was revising. This strategy worked for me because not only revising my essay made me find a few grammatical errors, but when another peer reviewed my essay, they had a ton more feedback which I alone could not achieve on my own. Another strategy that was useful was the drafting, because before submitting the phase essay a draft was always the first step before submitting. And of course with the draft there will always be a couple of mistakes I did, and by drafting this would allow me to correct my mistakes and when it was time to write the final draft I would have fewer mistakes because of the drafting and the revision process we had in class and to myself.
