Reflective Essay Organizing Ideas and Thesis

1. Focus on a specific assignment, experience or concept:

    Though I feel as if I had a firm grasp on the course as a whole, my understanding truly showed most lacking in the first assignment: quick reference guides. What I learned from this is rooted in my knowledge on what a QRG is, my ability to do a rhetorical analysis without purely summarizing, and my research skills.

2. Compare your experience writing in this course to past experiences:

    This course, as compared to other past experiences, focused more on application rather than just learning, teaching me new writing skills through trial and error rather than just memorization.

3. Reflect on strengths and weaknesses:

    Though I do feel like I have solid organizational skills and well-developed ideas, my writing is noticeably lacking in style, use of research, and critical analysis in regards to the writing prompt.

4. Focus on course objectives:

    My ability to meet course objectives is most likely my biggest weakness, as I lack a solid focus when it comes to sticking strictly to the prompt and fulfilling required tasks. This is rooted in the little time I spend brainstorming and my tendency to not seek out peer review.

   

5. Focus on your writing process/self-perception as a writer:

    My writing process, though many times very powerful, is plagued by tunnel vision and the inability to see my own mistakes. Though I do not think I am by any means a poor writer, I am far from a good one, and I feel this has to do with my lack of in-depth research preceding my writing and failure to search for effective peer review following it.

I feel as if my “focus on a specific assignment” is going to be the most effective because it best reflects how I see my experience in the course. Though I may have not done fantastic overall, my performance on the first essay (QRG) was definitely far below my abilities, do to simple but detrimental errors I made that looking back I now would like to avoid. Using this essay, I would like to be able to communicate with my teacher that I now understand the purpose of a QRG and know to focus more on my brainstorming of my essay before choosing a subject that may fail to fit the prompt.