I only ever enjoyed reading certain pieces of text, so when I saw there was a fiqws class based on killer stories I knew I had to enroll no matter what. I fit in the class into my schedule no matter what, basically working around that fiqws class. I’m glad I chose this specific topic because it hasn’t been hard for me to read all the short stories left as assignments. I definitely feel as though short stories related to killings and violence have complimented my ability to analyze and dig deeper in order to find the hidden meaning behind the text. I honed these skills through the multiple assignments and essays required of the class including the narrative, exploratory, and critical analysis essays.
I cannot say that I have completely perfected my abilities to analyze a piece of text but throughout the semester I definitely can say that learning about focusing on literary devices as well as outside context can give light to hidden messages and themes masked behind the text. When it comes to the actual writing part, I believe this class has greatly improved my essay structure and format, I am able to properly cite and create a bibliography(image x), and my grammar and vocabulary as well has greatly improved. I am knowledgeable in the use of transition words and different variations to fit certain lines(image y).
Another thing that might seem confusing but true is that my confidence levels when writing an essay have increased throughout this course. I progressively start to realize what this course is really about and with this i don’t doubt myself in my writings as much as used to or normally would.
I want to start off by talking about how this class allowed me to develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing my papers. Before I took this class I would never really write a draft since I would always submit the final assignment with the draft. In this class my peers and I would review each other’s drafts and give feedback as to what we could alter or add to improve it. I really looked forward to this because it meant that I got a new viewpoint that perhaps i would not see or would be too stubborn to pay attention to
Classmate reviews like these present above are what I generally used to improve my essays,
specifically the exploratory essay in this instance. I changed the title of the essay to be more simplistic and not confuse the reader between the different types of media. I also had realized that the title in the draft did not really make any sense.
I also learned to locate research sources in the library databases provided by ccny and how to evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias. For example, with the exploratory essay we were required to use sources from the library database and we had to make sure they were peer reviewed sources .
As illustrated above I was able to gain access to the library databases and throughout the semester I mainly used academic search complete.This class taught me the importance of using keywords as they narrow down the list of sources present to those that have a higher chance of containing valuable information.
And with that I was able to uncover sources that I used in my exploratory essay such as this one.
The main thing I can confidently say I managed to improve in this fall semester were my analysis and interpretation skills. I have furthered these skills when it comes to both using sources and texts in my writings as well as reading the actual texts. I am better at knowing when to use sources and how to implement them in my arguments and or ideas.
Take this page from one of my professors’ texts on the same story I was writing about. I had to get my idea across that readers might look at the story for what it seems to be about but not about what lies beneath the surface. In this case I used the underlined section to depict the implied plot of the story in order to later implement a supporting idea.
As demonstrated above I used the source from Peters accordingly and then brought up my other source to essentially begin describing the similarities in the situation faced in the story which ties in with my overall topic.
Another thing i can’t forget to mention which i know for sure i learned to do properly is cite sources.This class has emphasized the importance of properly citing to ensure credit is given as well as separating my words with those of others not just to make sure im not copying and pasting but to make it clear on whos doing the talking in my writings, me or the soruce.
These two images show my citing skills by the end of the semester in my critical research analysis essay which in my opinion is a great improvement from my previous citing attributes in past essays such as these in my exploratory essay.
In this exploratory essay I lacked signaling when I was using a source and not citing correctly which made it really hard to understand at some points. And so with this in mind I focused on improving the smoothness and flow of my writings so that readers could accurately depict who was doing the talking.
