A Semester of Writing

Through working on the four major essays this semester I have worked on achieving the various course learning objectives. Each assignment I completed helped to provide different opportunities to develop and meet the course writing objectives, enhancing my skills as a writer overall. 

A major course learning objective that I was able to develop through each writing assignment was, “formulate and articulate a stance through and in your writing.” In each of my writing assignments, while not argumentative essays, I was still able to take a position within my essays and prove such a position. In doing this learning objective, my essays were overall much stronger and focused leading to articulate conclusions in each of my assignments. Taking a stance in my writing also focused on the kinds of evidence I was seeking out and putting into my essay. Thus, having this focus allowed the research process to be a lot more relevant and supportive of the topics I was discussing in each of my essays. For example, in my personal artifact essay, I was able to present a focus which was related to the value of my chosen object to my identity. 

Relatedly, through taking an articulating stance in my writing I was able to accomplish the course learning objective of, “enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment.” Through taking a stance and choosing an argument throughout my writings the strategies I developed for reading, drafting, revising, editing and self-assessment, were all more effective and helped create a more focused essay with the guide of my argument/stance. For example, in my mini-ethnography essay my process for reading, drafting, revising and editing this essay was focused around how well I was providing evidence toward an argument in response to my research question. In doing so i also worked toward accomplishing the course learning objective, “ negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding 

conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation.” Throughout the process of writing my essays I would negotiate and evaluate the type rhetorical situation I was in, and the best way in which to relay my argument given the essay’s constraints. 

In the classmate interview essay I was really able to tackle the course learning objective, “ develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.” In writing and researching for this essay I had the opportunity to collaborate with a classmate and engage in a social conversation with this classmate. This use of social media would be instrumental to my subculture essay, and would be the major source of information that was included in the essay. 

This semester of writing assignments really allowed the opportunity for me to accomplish both the course learning objectives of, “practice using various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects” and “strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources).” A specific occurance of using these course learning objectives was while writing my subculture essay. To write the subculture essay I had to access new ways of getting sources, such as using the CCNY library, as well as the internet. I even used the internet in new ways to research my subculture, such as using Youtube or TikTok to gain data. In using these sources I was able to accomplish the second course learning objective mentioned, as I had to develop my skills in analyzing these sources and determining how and if they should fit into my writing. This was made easier through my ability to create a stance and stick with such stance throughout the writing. After analyzing the sources themselves, I was able to develop skills in how to properly cite, quote and paraphrase such sources in my writing. 

The last course learning objective I achieved this semester was, “ engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond.” Throughout this semester I had to analyze and best utilize the genre and ability to use multimodal composing in each writing assignment. One way in which I did this was through incorporating the first person in my academic writing this semester. This previously was something I had strayed far away from until I was able to see how composing an essay with this component could be beneficial for the essay. For example, in my mini-ethnography essay, it was very useful that I bring the first person into my essay as it provided a broader understanding of the observations I was offering throughout the essay. I also utilized the opportunity of being able to use multimodal composing, through including pictures and links throughout my essays, which gave more context and understanding for my essays. 

A learning objective I was unable to accomplish this semester was, “acknowledge your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources, and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility.” In writing my essays I wasn’t put in a situation where I needed to address linguistic differences. Had my peer reviewers needed clarification due to linguistic difficulties I would’ve had the opportunity to adjust my writing to aid linguistic differences. If I were put in this situation throughout the semester, I would have adjusted accordingly and changed my language in order to be more easily understood by that certain reader/audience. 

Throughout this semester of Writing for the Social Sciences I was able to accomplish all but one course learning objective. Each of the writing assignments provided me with the opportunity to accomplish the goals I have accomplished by the end of the semester. These assignments also allowed for these skills to not only be accomplished but developed. All in all, with the guidance of the course learning objectives I was able to enhance my skills as a writer in the Spring 2023 semester of Writing for The Social Sciences.