The Assignment
In this essay, you will be examining your progress as a writer from the beginning of your writing courses to the present. Think back to the first essay you wrote at the college level. How has your approach to writing changed? What kind of progress have you made since that time?
In order to effectively write a reflective essay, you will need to:
Make a claim about your body of work and argue for it
Take a position on your body of writing and defend that position
Cite your own work (including any essays you have written in this class or the previous writing class you took)
Consider citing other sources, such as those discussing writing pedagogy
Approach the assignment from an evaluative standpoint
Audience and Purpose
The purpose of this essay is to evaluate your own development as a writer. It is the opportunity to discuss, in writing, just how far you have come. You might also consider this an opportunity to show, one final time, that you have the skills needed to exit this writing course.
As for audience, keep in mind that you are writing an academic, college-level essay. Your approach should be appropriate to a collegiate body of readers. Please keep in mind that your instructor, though included in a collegiate body of readers, is not your primary focus here. Though the instructor will read the paper, this is not the place to mention how the instruction you received made you who you are as a writer. Instead, you should focus on evaluating your own abilities in relation to the components listed below.
What to Include
Here are some components you should discuss in your essay:
Your ability to coordinate your purpose with your audience
Your ability to adhere to a main idea
Your ability to logically organize your work
Your ability to fully develop your ideas
Your ability to apply the rules of Standard American English
Your ability to find and select relevant and reliable sources
Your ability to synthesize your ideas with sources
Your ability to cite and document sources correctly.