ENGL 101

M. McCampbell
Fall 2015

400 600 words

Due: Dec 14
e-Portfolio Reflective Essay
Assessing Your Development as a Writer

Assess (from my American Heritage Dictionary) make a judgment about

Write an essay in which you make a judgment about your development as a writer
this semester in English 101. You will use the following criteria:
1. General habits (planning out your assignment, drafting, revising, allowing
enough time, seeking assistance from the professor or the Writing Center)
2. College Composition Goals: Three ENGL 101 course objectives from the
Overall Course Objectives (see page 2)
3. Writing Skills: Three major topics from the syllabus (see page 2)
A more detailed description of the evaluation criteria is included on the description
to the e-Portfolio Assessment Project, distributed in class on Friday, May 1.
You will use the evidence you have been putting into your e-portfolio to support
the criteria. In addition, you will use hand-written comments from papers and
scoring rubrics that I have returned.
Paragraph 1:
5 points
begin with a brief introductory statement about this semester in English 101.
You will conclude the introduction with a thesis statement that best assesses
(makes a judgment about) your development as a writer.
Paragraphs 2 - 4:
5 points each
these paragraphs will be descriptions of your habits, College composition
goals, and writing skills.
Paragraph 5:
20 points
This paragraph will be a reflective paragraph, evaluating your development
as a writer. You will draw from the specific details you identified in
paragraphs 2 - 4 to illustrate your evaluation.
This reflective paragraph may include a mixed judgment: you may have
improved in some areas, but did not change in others; you may identify
frustration in some areas of writing as well as a sense of achievement in
others. Your judgment will connect with at least three specific details from
paragraphs 2 4, and shows some insight or reasoning about why you
improved did not improve.
Your essay should be about 400 600 words.
10 points
You may use first person pronoun, but eschew second person pronouns.
Your writing should be clear, concise, and error free.
This should be an honest and objective assessment of your writing, not a
persuasive essay to get a high grade.

B.

Overall Course Objectives:

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to do the following:

1. employ a recursive writing process that includes invention, planning, drafting,
revising, proofreading and editing;
2. work collaboratively with peers to plan, develop, and carry out writing projects
and provide constructive feedback;
3. write well-organized, unified, coherent essays with clear and complete thesis
statements that express a purpose;
4. think critically and support the thesis with details, examples, reasons, and other
evidence;
5. employ a variety of rhetorical strategies and modes to express complex ideas;
6. vary sentence structure and length;
7. use language in a manner appropriate to a given audience;
8. conduct research; access and choose appropriate sources from standard library
resources which may be in a variety of formats both print and electronic;
9. evaluate sources (which may be print or electronic) by examining authenticity,
currency, validity, and reliability;
10. incorporate outside material into essays by summarizing, quoting, and
paraphrasing correctly;
11. provide documentation for sources with a Works Cited page and parenthetical
citations, using the MLA format; and
12. conform to the grammar, punctuation, and spelling rules of standard written
English with a minimum of errors.
C. Major Topics

1.

Audience awareness

2.

Writing as a recursive process

3.

Essay organization and development

4.

Unity, coherence and clarity in written language

5.

Rhetorical strategies

6.

Sentence variety

7.

Grammar, punctuation and usage review

8.

Summarizing, paraphrasing and quoting

9.

Documenting and citing both print and electronic sources in MLA format

10. Writing the research paper that employs a variety of print and electronic
sources
11. Revising
12. Editing and proofreading
13. The impact of technology on writing