Tyla Iacobucci
English 1001
Mr.Maxey
11 April 2020
Course Overall
Overall, I enjoyed this course despite the challenges and difficult assignments I had to overcome. I believe the way things in this course were set up things flowed pretty nicely. Some of the things that I struggled with in this course were just trying to keep up with all of the different assignments and going back and fourth with the different essays got confusing. This was challenging for me because I sometimes got confused with all of the information and had to take time to collect all of my thoughts an things towards one assignment. I honestly think this impacted my writing by not completing my essays to the best of my ability. If I were able to just focus on one essay at a time and be done with it to start the next one would have been more effective for me just because the information was fresh in my mind and going back and fourth got very confusing. What I have found that worked for me is just writing things down such as my thoughts and information about one essay and just keeping my information labeled and organized so when the second draft or second assignment on that same thing comes around I already have my information. This helped me more than I thought! It kept me very organized.
Over the time of being in this course, I really believe that my writing skills have improved. I have learned how to write many different kinds of essays. Ones that I was never introduced to before. I have learned how to correctly cite my sources and create a work cited page. These things have added to my strengths as a writer, which are being able to organize my thoughts and information and I also believe that I am able to develop a essay in decent amount of time. These are my biggest strengths because I have noticed in the past that these are the things that come easy to me. Other than that, I am really unsure about what my strengths are. These strengths have been shown in my writing for this course by, like I said before trying to keep up with all my assignments and the different essays with going back and fourth can be pretty confusing so I stay pretty organized and well put together with it all.
One of our first essays was the Rhetorical Analysis essay. Personally, this essay was a bit difficult for me because there was a lot of different parts in this essay. This was basically breaking down an article that we have read but in different parts about the essay like for example the summary, purpose and things like that were things that I never did before so it was very new to me. What I learned from this was that there are lot more different kind of essays than just telling a story. Just completing the different parts of the essay was new to me because like I said I have never wrote an essay before like this. It was new experience that was very helpful because I did not know essays like this existed. What I learned most importantly about this essay is that they can be so much more than just telling a story or stating an opinion.
What I struggled with the most in creating this essay was trying to separate the different parts. In some of them, I really felt like I was repeating myself over again and again but even though the questions and parts were all similar they were all very different and asking of different things and it was very hard for me to notice that while creating the essay but I realized it more after I was done. For example, at first I thought that the “overall” and the “conclusion” were the same and I thought it was very stupid to do both but then I realized that they are different and have a different purpose on the essay. On the other hand what I thought I did the best with is the summary. I have been writing summaries my whole life so this came very easy to me. After the essay was finished I realized I could have done better because now that its finished I understand it more than when it was being done.
One of the second essays that we have done during this course is an Exploratory essay. Personally, this was my favorite essay. I really enjoyed writing this because it helped me find out so many different things about my major that I was really unsure about. Once I found out that we got to do this essay on our major it changed my whole attitude and I actually wanted to do the work, it made me eager to learn more. You have to search and search until you find good, reliable information to go in your essay from different sources and that’s what makes this essay different from others. But it was very difficult to not take position in this essay because I wanted to state my opinion and what I knew so many different times. I honestly wanted to put the way I felt after things so many different times but I had to stop myself.
Overall I think this is the essay that I did the best on. I did not struggle with much besides trying to not take position. Also I struggled with finding good reliable sources. This was problem for me because business is such a broad topic that it is really hard to narrow down and find good example to support you. Other than that things went pretty smoothly. Once I had all of the information it was easy for me to put it all together!
One of the third type of essays that we did was a Research Essay and personally this was the most difficult! What I learned from this essay is that there is so much information out there and you have to sort through to find the reliable! This essay needs so much different kinds of information from so many different sources and I believe that’s what made it so difficult. Trying to find the right information to support your argument and make it stronger is what got to me because at some points in writing my essay I had to stop and take a break because it was just a lot to take on. Also with my topic being so broad there is so much information out there! This essay was also difficult for me to stay in one position because it had the same topic as our exploratory essay. I wanted so bad to state my opinion because it is my major but I had to keep reminding myself that my opinion is not what is going to persuade people, facts are!
This essay felt like it took forever but once I was done, I felt really accomplished. Finding 10 reliable sources and making sure they were all reliable had to be the most difficult for me. But on the other hand, once I found the information it was not that hard for me to put it together. I am more of an organizing person and I think im good at transition throughout my essays, its just the initial start with finding all the information is what got to me.
Our project at the end was a multimodal project. This was different from other forms of writing because there is hardly any writing at all, it is all media base. With only 5 slides that contain works while the other 15 contain pictures or videos only. I have never done one of these before so it was something I had to figure out. This project also came kind of fast, I was expecting it but it really came out of no where. Everything about this project was new to me besides creating a slideshow! I mean who hasn’t done a power point before! But the requirements for this project is what was hard for me. When I first read the instructions it felt impossible. But once I got to work things came to me more easily.
What I am currently struggling with the most is trying to get my voice over together, I have never done it before it its just weird but im sure I will be able to get the hang of it and use it other classes in the future. Finding media to use such as pictures and videos was not hard for me just putting them in the right places were, trying to find the exact picture without using words to get my point across was a little challenging but not much. I think that overall I have almost completed this project and it looks pretty good considering this is my very first one!
In conclusion, after completing this course I just wish I knew how to organize better in the beginning. After getting halfway through the course I figured it out but I wish I would have known sooner. I am most proud of my exploratory essay because I think that is the one I had knew more about so I could complete it better compared to my other essays. I know that I will use the information from this class in my future courses because this is not my last English class and im sure they will expect the same kind of things. To future students, just try your best to stay organized! Things really add up fast and it is easy to fall behind!
Tyla Iacobucci 
Introduction:
1. In the introduction, does the author explain his/her strengths and weaknesses? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes, she provides both.
2. In the introduction, does the author provide specific examples of his/her strengths and weaknesses throughout the entire course? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes, she has examples to her weaknesses and strengths.
Rhetorical Analysis
1. In the paragraph about the Rhetorical Analysis, does the author provide an explanation of what they learned? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes.
2. In the paragraph about the Rhetorical Analysis, does the author explain how reflection is different from other forms of writing? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes.
3. In the paragraph about the Rhetorical Analysis, does the author explain how this type of writing can be used in other types of essays in college? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
No, I think adding this somewhere after she states her reflection should complete the paragraph.
4. Does the author provide specific examples of what he/she did well or struggled with on this essay? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes.
Exploratory Essay
1. In the paragraph about the Exploratory Essay, does the author provide an explanation of what they learned? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
No, which I think adding this in the second paragraph about this essay at the end would make it sound really good.
2. In the paragraph about the Exploratory Essay, does the author explain how rhetorical analysis is different from other forms of writing? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes.
3. In the paragraph about the Exploratory Essay, does the author explain how this type of writing can be used in other types of essays in college? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
No, but adding this and an example of a class would be recommended.
4. Does the author provide specific examples of what he/she did well or struggled with on this essay? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes, done very nicely.
Research Essay
1. In the paragraph about the Research Essay, does the author provide an explanation of what they learned? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes, but add more examples.
2. In the paragraph about the Research Essay, does the author explain how argumentative research is different from other forms of writing? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
No, Just explain that it is different because of all of the sources and research that needs to be done.
3. In the paragraph about the Research Essay, does the author explain how this type of writing can be used in other types of essays in college? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
No, but I had trouble trying to explain this in about all my essays, I am working on it though!
4. Does the author provide specific examples of what he/she did well or struggled with on this essay? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes.
Multimodal Project
1. In the paragraph about the Multimodal Project, does the author provide an explanation of what they learned? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes.
2. In the paragraph about the Multimodal Project, does the author explain how multimodal projects are different from other forms of writing? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes.
3. In the paragraph about the Multimodal Project, does the author explain how this type of writing can be used in other types of essays in college? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
No, but providing this at the end would be useful.
4. Does the author provide specific examples of what he/she did well or struggled with on this essay? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes. Done very well.
Conclusion
1. In the conclusion, does the author examine how his/her view of writing has changed throughout the course? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
No but I Think providing this would make it a stronger conclusion summing everything up.
2. In the conclusion, does the author examine what advice he/she might provide to someone who is taking this course in the future? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes but there is not enough information. Explain yourself.
3. In the conclusion, does the author explain how he/she intends for this course to impact future coursework? If not, what might he/she do to fix this?
Yes.
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