Throughout this semester I have learned a tremendous amount of new things. I remember the first day I walked into the class and went over the course learning goals or the syllabus, I quickly realized that I found something that is so much related to me. A lot of assignments that have had helped me achieve the course learning goals. First, let’s get to the Rhetorical Situation worksheet which helped me “Explore and analyze in their own and others writing a variety of genres and rhetorical situations”

It’s a worksheet that helps you understand everything about a specific text written by someone. For instance, after doing this worksheet, it provided me with the author’s credibility, the purpose of a text, context that illustrates genre such as fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama that is being used. Tone such as sarcastic, humorous, cautious etc. shows authors feelings. Rhetorical strategies such as pathos, ethos, and logos are being used to make the audience understand the things they (authors) have been through. In a sense, this assignment is something that provides you with everything you need to understand a story. It really helped me dig under the surface to pull out thousands of information from a text. Furthermore, the skills I have acquired is transferable to any of my other classes.

“One Strategy for Rhetorical Reading: Focus on Doing” is another assignment that improved my writing skills. This task falls under the course learning goals of “Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations.” Here is a picture of the assignment itself.

this worksheet helps you describe something in an advanced way by using active verbs. It gives me a clear vision of how I can use better verbs to demonstrate different perspective of authors. I used this worksheet throughout the whole semester because it made my sentences look clear and fluent while explaining various ideas.

Right before a major assignment, we were given to write a “One Page Snapshot”

and many free writes where we had to write about experiments, we’ve encountered that affected our language and literacy development. These in class-works literally prepared me for the bigger assignment which is the “Language and Literacy Narrative Essay.” which worth 20% of our grades. Doing this assignment helped me achieve “develop strategies for reading, writing, drafting, revising and editing.” because it took a massive afford to get it done.

It taught me a very important lesson since I have never written one like that before. I was able to share my own feelings through writing. I have gained creative writing skills out of this assignment. The textbook played an important role while writing the essay because I have got a tremendous amount of ideas by annotating the textbook and understanding other authors narratives that we were reading in class.

Revising and editing is something that helped me understand my mistakes and taught me not to make the same mistakes twice. Also, when it comes to grades revising and editing is most significate because the more time you spend revising, the better your essay gets, and better essay means better grades. Therefore, I spent a lot of time going over my essays. Moreover, it demonstrated a way to explain the text with a clear vision.

Another assignment that helped me “develop strategies for reading, writing, drafting, revising and editing” would be the “Charting a worksheet” a task that gives you a clear understanding of what the authors are saying and doing specifically the message they are trying to convey to their audience.

For instance, sometimes authors use complicated language to describe things, so like they say something and mean something else. This worksheet helped me get out of the confusion and perceive what the authors are really into.

We would always do a peer review right after we would write a draft of an assignment where we review each other’s papers and give feedback. This provided me with important information to make my essay make better. Also, I have got feedback from the teachers saying what can be fixed or improved and I followed their instructions accordingly. Therefore, working in a harmony helped me “Develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspect of writing processes.”

Digital technologies such as laptop, blackboard, PowerPoints and other resources were being used throughout the whole semester. These are the things that helped me do my homework, research, watch educational videos which was part of the class assignments. Moreover, we had to do a presentation at the beginning of the semester. Basically, we shared an experiment that shaped our language and literacy development, in front of the whole class. Even though it was breathtaking, but it helped me “understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences” and get out of my comfort zone and be there and present my story.

Then comes to the “Research Exploratory Essay” which “Recognize the role of language attitudes and standards in empowering, oppressing and hierarchizing languages and their users.” I have learned so many new information about language discrimination. I have come across a lot of sources that supports language discrimination which is insane to me. I had the chance to go against oppressor’s perspective and share my own feelings about discrimination.

I wrote a research paper before; however, it was different and there were no requirements. But In this essay, I had to go over a rubric where all the instructions were given such as the number of sources, minimum pages that need to be done and some other important things must be touched. While writing the essay the “synthesis worksheet”

 illustrated how to expand on my own point of view about texts and make a connection between sources. It is another way me “Developing writing strategies.”

What was most helpful while writing the major assignments would be the librarian who helped us “Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazines, and newspaper articles) in the library’s database or archives an on the internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, and bias.” I never knew how to find legit sources from online however after going to the library and seeing the librarian’s presentation, everything became a piece of cake to me. I was able to understand the concept of locating legit sources from the library website. Also, in class the teachers went over citations which helped me “Practice systematic application of citation conversations.” and understand how to cite perfectly.