Purpose

By the end of this writing project, you will be able to:

Demonstrate your understanding of key course concepts such as rhetoric, genre, conventions, processes, critical thinking, reading, and writing
Reflect on how youve changed as a writer over the course of the semester, using evidence from your work to demonstrate your progress
Apply standard genre conventions for a reflective letter including structure, design, formatting, language usage, and mechanics

Task

Audience: Yourself and your instructor

Purpose: To make a claim about how you have mastered the course concepts so far this semester

Genre: A reflective letter

Conventions: A letter written to your instructor using MLA formatting conventions

Minimum 350 words

Due: Sunday April 5th 11:59 PM to WebCampus

At this point in the semester, you have had a range of critical thinking, reading, and writing experiences. You have read several writers texts about education, reading, writing, and literacy. You have learned about rhetorical theories and concepts, analyzed other writers use of rhetoric, and employed rhetorical strategies in your own writing. You have provided feedback on your peers writing and received feedback on your own work. You have also brainstormed, drafted, revised, and edited a major writing assignment.

The reflective letter asks you to reflect on these class experiences and to make an argument about how you have met the learning outcomes for the course so far this semester. It is an opportunity for you to demonstrate the critical thinking, reading, and writing knowledge youve developed, to reflect on how you have changed as a reader and writer, and to identify other areas of growth for the rest of the semester. You should use evidence to support your claim about how you have met the learning outcomes. Evidence may include direct quotes from your writing projects, your first-week writing assignment, or your unit reflections. You may also use specific examples from class activities, readings, or other coursework to support your claim.

As you write your reflective letter, you should review the English 101F course learning outcomes. Your letter does not need to address each bullet point listed in the What students should be able to do column, but you should address each of the major concepts (Rhetorical Knowledge; Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing; Processes; Conventions) to discuss what youve learned about that concept and how your work this semester demonstrates you have met the expectations for that concept.

Concepts

What students should be able to do

Rhetorical Knowledge an understanding of factors that influence and are influenced by authors choices during the creation of a text. 

      Apply key rhetorical concepts, especially those associated with the rhetorical situation, in order to analyze and compose a variety of texts, with an emphasis on academic essays.

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing ways of exploring ideas, information, situations, and texts in order to gain new insights.

      Use composing and reading as tools for inquiry in various rhetorical contexts.

      Analyze texts in order to identify and evaluate assertions and evidence, recognize underlying assumptions, and trace connections and patterns.

      Use strategies such as interpretation, synthesis, response, and critique to compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those from appropriate sources.

Processes the flexible strategies writers use to imagine, develop, and finish projects.

      Develop a writing project through multiple drafts by applying flexible strategies and technologies for reading, drafting, reviewing, collaborating, revising, rewriting, rereading, and editing.

      Use composing as a means to discover and reconsider ideas, give and act on constructive feedback to works in progress, and reflect on the development and effectiveness of reading and composing practices.

Conventions the formal rules and informal guidelines that define genres and shape readers and writers perceptions of correctness or appropriateness.

      Apply knowledge of grammar, usage, punctuation, spelling, and common formats in their own work and use appropriate technologies to create and share documents.

      Understand the concepts of intellectual property that motivate documentation conventions and apply citation conventions systematically in their own work.

Criteria

Your reflective letter will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

Rhetorical choices- Does the reflective letter effectively fulfill its purpose and appeal to the audience?
Content choices- Does the reflective letter make a claim about the writers development over the semester supported by evidence from class work?
Genre choices- Does the reflective letter effectively apply genre conventions?
Structural choices- Does the reflective letter follow a logical arrangement?
Linguistic choices- Does the reflective letter use effective language for the genre and rhetorical situation?