Final Reflection for Composition II

Projects and their Processes

During the semester, we were assigned three major projects. We first worked on project one, a persuasive essay, project two was an annotated bibliography, which included research needed for project three, which was a research-based argumentative essay.

 

My persuasive essay is called “Gen Z incoming! Is college worth it for us?” This essay was about how and why college will be essential for my generation. My original topic choice was how college was beneficial for myself, but I changed my mind and switched to how college is beneficial for my generation. With finding out that more people were not attending college nowadays and its ripple across generations along with the changing world, this topic really stuck out to me. The summary and response worksheet, turning in a revision, and the peer and instructor review helped me better my writing. For this essay, I dive into how college is becoming more and more necessary for future generations and the world, and why our generation will need it to accomplish our own goals.

 

My annotated bibliography contains sources about the benefits of educational videogames, major obstacles educational games will need to overcome, how teachers can implement videogames into their classroom materials, and studies about how videogames have positively impacted students. I had to research one book, one .gov website, at least 8 articles from the library database for my school, and three articles from peer reviewed journals. I chose educational videogames as my topic, as videogames have been a large part of my life and have taught me many things, along with my own history of experiencing gaming and teaching. there wasn’t a peer review for this project, but the annotated bibliography assignment sheet helped me organize and understand the project.

 

My research essay is called “Are videogames the gateway to an educational evolution? “ This paper was about how videogames can be the way for education to evolve and be more effective with the changing world. I use sources from my annotated bibliography to strengthen the benefits of educational gaming, and what it has done for students, I also explain how the media is the biggest obstacle for educational gaming as it exaggerates videogame’s ‘cons’. This paper dives into detail about the effectiveness and versatility of educational gaming. I did not receive peer feedback, but completing a revision, my instructor’s feedback, and the feedback of my online tutor was very helpful in me bettering my essay.

 

Learning outcomes

I know how to respond appropriately to different audiences. I learned to take other views on the topic for my research and incorporate them into my own writing.

During the annotated bibliography, I had to gather twelve sources for my bibliography. I used the EBSCO Academic Search Elite database, ProQuest, and the UA-PTC Libraries Catalog to aid my research. I found a few sources that show how implementing gaming into education is more complicated than we may believe, and how other people’s mindsets may keep this from happening, or at the very least make it more difficult. For example, I used the international journal of Game-Based Learning entry by Watson and Fang, to address the concerns people may have for educational learning, “Annetta states that good teaching will not be overpowered by videogames in class and are only an enhancer to help engage students in their course materials and help them grasp complex concepts in the real worlds in comfortable spaces” (Annetta 236). This source helped me address opposing viewpoints and help my opposing audiences understand my point. 

I displayed the ability to use reading and writing for inquiry, learning, and thinking. When writing my project 1 and project 3 essays, I used the summary response worksheets to choose which sources will benefit me the most. Reading these sources helped me add new ideas to my views on videogames. For example, in my persuasive essay, I didn’t know that the demand for bachelor’s degrees was growing, before reading Tretina’s Forbes page, I believed that these standards of requirements in the work field had been the same ever since college became a thing. I agreed with Tretina, and with this new information, I was able to represent my stance in my paper.

I exhibited my ability to integrate others’ ideas with my own in my persuasive and research essay by using intext-citation and paraphrasing as shown above. I had experience with implementing citations in my writing well.

I learned how to use flexible processes to generate, revise, edit, and proofread. I used an annotated bibliography, the summary and response paper and created an outline to make the skeleton of my final draft. For example, the outline benefited me greatly while setting up my paper, I basically had a skeleton of my essay, which felt less overwhelmed and knew exactly what idea needed to go where. The summary and response paper aided me a lot, as I’m basically setting up my paragraphs using quote sandwiches. The annotated bibliography had me be more prepared with finding sources I would need with my paper.  We also had peer review and instructor’s feedback, and although I did not have peer review, I substituted with feedback from my online tutor, the feedback from my instructor and tutor was meaningful and helped me grow, this applies for my persuasive argument paper as well. I was able to fix errors that had been present in my past essays and helped me better my writing.

Peer reviewing taught me a lot about collaborative writing processes. It helped me see how students made similar mistakes to my own, present, and past, and helped me give feedback that had helped me in the past, along with reasons as to why that change was needed. Having a large group review papers helped me further notice mistakes that I should watch out with my future writings. I enjoyed the google doc peer review, it felt more interactive and let us be more specific about our advice (What line the mistake was on, etc.).

I developed my knowledge of conventions in my project 1 and 3 revisions. For project 3, I had a few errors, such as extraneous capitalization, which I fixed and double checked for with a grammar checker and reading my paper on my own. I also had a problem with a fused sentence, which were easy fixes. For my project 1 revision, I had more problems with my grammar. I included long quotes that should’ve been paraphrased, along with forgetting some in-text citations. I also struggled with formatting, with my works cited page needing to be aligned with my essay. I grew and corrected these errors through revisions, which helped me keep these errors in mind, lest they occur again.

Strengths and Challenges

I believe that my writing strength is my researching. I am very thorough when it comes to credibility and the topics of said sources, I have succeeded in this for both of my essays and my annotated bibliography. I also hold strength in using logos and pathos in getting my stand across to my readers. I show what could happen to the futures of students if they don’t go to college or their emotional state if educational gaming isn’t implemented in educational learning, especially during the current COVID pandemic. I feel that my biggest weakness lies in my procrastination, I have time, but I wait until last second to apply and act accordingly, although my work has come out successful, this is not good practice and is something that can affect my writing, and other aspects of my life. My other weakness would be planning out my essays, but outlines and other processes help me counter this weakness and strengthen it.

Overall Benefit

As my strong suit isn’t writing, this class felt exactly how I pictured, challenging. I got worried at the beginning of the semester, but as I started to ease into things writing didn’t seem so bad. I learned a lot about citations and quote sandwiches, and with work processes being assignments and required, I realized that these processes make writing and planning a lot easier, and I will carry this with me. I also noticed the importance of writing in other areas, not just journaling and being a book writer or researcher as I originally believed. Writing is everywhere, from job applications to letters, writing is crucial and is a big part of the world, it lets us communicate our ideas with others and grow as people. The most valuable skills I got from this class is how to use writing processes and a better understanding of ethos, logos, pathos, and arguments. With the completion of both comp 1 and 2, I am more prepared to write essays and grow my writing throughout my life. These classes showed me so much and I can’t wait to take my skills into the world.