Allison Andrade
11/25/23
Jason Lobell
Self-Assessment essay
One of the most memorable moments in the first day that I took this class was when I was told that I could write however pleased me that I could use slang, make mistakes, and other things that didn’t coincide with the standard English that has been taught to me since the beginning. I was wondering why this was one of the first things told to us, then we started examining the attitudes towards linguistic standards that empower and oppress language users. We looked at different forms of media such as speeches, videos, poems, and essays that talked about the person’s personal experience with language and how they went about it. I related to some of the topics brought up such as Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Lozada-Olivia’s video “My Spanish.” I say “some” because not everyone’s experiences with language are the same and I could not relate to experiences like Safwat Saleem and his stuttering, however that did not stop me from drawing from my own experiences and forming a connection. “I [..] liked hearing other people’s experiences with language because even though they weren’t the same experiences that I went through I was still able to relate to them”.
While looking at the different forms of media in which others expressed themselves it did not feel like one way was the right way to express language politics. Each person that we investigated had their own takes and forms of expression that captivated who they are as a person as well as their emotions. We were tasked to have a form of visual representation for our essay, I went for a power point. I really enjoyed that part of my essay because I felt like I was able to help people visualize what I was talking about, especially when I felt like people would appeal to the visuals more.
My time in the class went mostly without a hitch until we were supposed to explore and analyze writing and readings with a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. As well as recognizing and practicing rhetorical strategies when engaged in writing situations. The thing that I struggled with was the rhetorical situations/strategies. This is mainly because I felt like I lacked in that aspect because I have struggled with English and even when I did have a decent education, I did not grasp anything until my final two years of middle school. I came to this class thinking I was knowledgeable enough, however when people started to use words like pathos and ethos it threw me off and I felt like I was behind everyone else. This lack of fundamental knowledge grew with identifying rhetorical situations because I have not really learned what that meant and what it exactly was. It felt difficult because I barely understood the concept, however that did not stop me from trying my best in doing the assigned work and trying to understand.
Throughout the course, we wrote a couple of essays. When drafting essays editing, revising, drafting, and collaborating are essential to creating a great essay. This part of the process is quite simple to me because I have my own personal tried and true system for editing even if it is just the first draft. While on the outside if I were to explain to someone how I go about editing my writing may seem very sloppy, but it is very helpful as it gets the job done and I don’t have to stress myself about writing countless drafts and has even helped me just create one good singular draft that could easily be turned into a good final draft when the final editing is done. I also really liked getting feedback from my peers because while I already had thought about the points that they bring up it makes me happy to know that I am on the right track with my editing progress. Even when I was confused on a certain aspect of my writing, it still felt nice to know that my peers are there to help me get on the right track especially in the peer profile because “I was struggling with the start of the essay, [and] when my essay was reviewed it got good comments and felt like I did a decent enough job for my first time writing a peer profile”.
