Embarking on my first semester of college within this course was difficult but rewarding. I was still caught up in my old way of writing throughout high school, I ended up falling out of love with writing. Despite my deep passion for writing, I’ve learned that I can very clearly see the shift my works’ have taken. I hadn’t known much about the FIQWS courses when I was first registering for classes, I had only known that the topic of assistive technology would be extremely prominent. Nearing the end of this course, I developed a greater sense of writing while still being able to convey my points effectively. A trend you will see throughout my works is how repetitive I could be, constantly rephrasing the same points to “better the reader’s understanding”. This does not prove effectiveness; it only jumbles my points and makes my writing piece boring to read. With this flaw being constantly brought to my attention, I have tried to put in that feedback into my future works. The following assignments featured on this site are as follows: formal letter of introduction, discussion posts, product review, leadership presentation, researched critical analysis, multimodal presentation, and self-reflections for these assignments.

My formal letter of introduction into this course was the first piece of work I had done since high school. It was evident that I hadn’t know how to write about myself as a student. I find it easier to write about researched topics or anything else, besides introducing and discusses things about myself. With writing this piece, I’ve been able to determine how I should phrase myself and speak on my interests as well as strengths/weaknesses. The artifact demonstrates my ability to adapt and learn from many trial and error runs. In terms of CLOs, this growth highlights the ability to develop strategies throughout the writing process. Seeing as though I neglected to draft up or even note what it is I wanted to include in my introduction essay, which would’ve been smart to do. Overall, the CLO connected to this artifact would be going through each step of the writing process to ensure the impact of the writing piece.

My first discussion post, “A Thousand Words”, involved construction during class time. Although I responded to the discussion board, I had neglected to further connect the points I was making. The insights and build off in class were the push I needed to further drive home my points. I learned that I need to make sure that my reasonings are clearly stated and explained. Like the previous artifact, I hadn’t quite grasped how collaborative aspect of these discussion boards worked. I had neglected to then respond to others within a specific time frame, hindering the connection that takes place while discusses. The CLO revolving around collaborative work is the perfect way to summarize the significance of allowing and feeding into collaborative work, it allows more ideas to form as well as better the other person’s understanding of a topic.

Next on this list is the “Dangers of a Single Story” discussion response; textual analysis has always been something that I have been interested in, I have realized that I limit myself to expand and think in different ways. Responding to Adiche’s piece has been something I’ve done before but have never gone too in depth to. This discussion allowed me to voice my opinion over her piece; however, I failed at keeping up with those who responded to my opinion. Keeping up with discussion boards is still something that I am working on. Once again, collaborative work serves as the CLO learned through this piece of work. Building off others’ opinions and perspectives I san important part within analyzing different bodies of work. I hadn’t fulfilled my part of the collaborative analysis of this piece, but I have learned my lesson in helping others, as well as myself, in building and molding our perspectives.

The product review essay was an essay designed to help us think critical about what is around us. Seeing as this is a FIQWS course, we are expected to write critically about a product and go through various criteria to determine how well the product works. Figuring out what product to review for this paper was hard; but the examples in class helped shape my choice and precision when choosing a topic related to the coursework. I ultimately decided to write about a pair of platform boots I had recently got, seeing as though I wanted to write about something I was interested in. As I continued to write my paper, I channeled various reviews that I have posted over different sites to help me get a better perspective on what a product review was. What I hadn’t realized was that product reviews for assistive technologies and for regular products are two completely different things. I had developed an unformal tone throughout my piece, lessen the effectiveness and overall message of my piece. The feedback given from this piece helped shape the rest of my papers, it helped me learn to stray away from such formal talking.

This was my first time writing a self-reflection essay, I had no idea where to start. I used my prior knowledge with writing product reviews for things that I have bought to construct my essay, which hadn’t accomplished the intended goal. I learned from this piece to just reflect on the content I provided, not continue about what was originally written about. This lesson has truly informed the way I continue to write my self-reflection pieces. Emphasizing the success and weaknesses of my work is a critical lesson to learn when analyzing and responding to a self-reflection. Being able to pinpoint the issues within my paper adds onto exploring and analyzing various genres and types of work.

The leadership presentation played to my strength of dividing up information to make it easily digestible for my audience. I’d say my growth on this simply came from doing the proper research to back up the information I already knew a bit about. I was able to research properly about my topic and different methods of achieving the same things. The specific CLO that demonstrates this growth is “locate research sources…and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy…” This specific CLO has translated into the lessons I’ve learned when properly supporting any idea I have. It is important to demonstrate to others, specifically when presenting to a group of people, to build trust and credibility in the information you are giving them.

What I didn’t do in this self-reflection was assess and analyze my work to the requirements of the project, which is something that I have since improved on. Connecting and further explaining how effective it was within the original piece was the one piece of the puzzle I missed. After this piece, I realized the importance of bridging those two together. The CLO related to this is “compose texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, …” This is the perfect way to summarize the growth had from the initial piece written. Critical analysis in self-reflection essays is crucial to show whether the information given was understood and applied within the piece, which is something I hadn’t considered.

This was the first outline, for the researched critical analysis, that hit all the marks of what an outline should include feedback on my outline in my peer group (by a single member) really helped shape my thesis and the purpose of my paper. “Engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes” directly emphasizes the growth from my initial mock outlines to the fully produced piece of writing. As explained in the product review essay section, adding collaborative aspects to the various stages of the writing process really helps widen the perspective on how your information is perceived. Getting feedback on my outline truly helped shape the direction my researched critical analysis paper went in.

The annotated bibliography was a tricky assignment for me, seeing as though I was still cementing my idea for the RCA paper. Gathering and explaining the sources I would be using to defend and support my thesis. As I added more sources to this, I showed that I could select sources that accurately related to my overarching topic/thesis. Locating research sources that support the claims brought up in the thesis was the major growth I saw when completing the annotated bibliography. The CLO about accurately vetting the information being researched and making sure that the sources and information is credible.

The researched critical analysis paper’s objective was to generate a thesis relating to assistive technologies, more so relating to our final assistive technology device being constructed for the other portion of this class. I did not choose a topic closely related to my assistive technology device, but I had chosen something I was passionate about researching. Finding a topic that was interesting was crucial in being able to write for the required length. I had started to just jot down my ideas over the research I had done, which helped me figure out the points I was trying to make to support my thesis. Once I constructed the draft that I was proud enough to share, I submit my draft in my peer group for review. Peer review has been a blessing with getting constructive and clear feedback, which sometimes isn’t applicable when a professor gives feedback. My peer reviewer had specifically highlighted and shown me where I’ve repeated myself profusely or where I haven’t fully connected my ideas back to my thesis. I reviewed and revised my RCA paper several times to make sure that my points were clear enough to follow from the reader’s perspective. This shows that I have been trying to better my understanding and execution of the writing process. The CLO that best applies to the progress I have made throughout this course is “develop strategies for reading…revising and editing.” Of course, I can always improve on connecting my ideas and identifying the issues within a writing piece, I have made a significant amount of progress from the beginning of the course.

The Self-Reflection for the RCA was informed by the past trials of self-reflections. The tone of this essay demonstrates the past downsides of self-reflection. Within the paper, I made sure to directly respond and analyze how I reviewed my work. The goal of this essay was to look on our RCA under a microscope, see if we met with the guidelines and properly laid out our research. I was able to summarize and communicate how I feel I did on this project. I had bombed the leadership presentation self-reflection due to my inability to further tie in my project to the requirements. After receiving feedback from the professor, I realized that I just must connect my ideas; I do not have to add in a bunch more unnecessary information to fill in the gaps.

The multimodal presentation showcased my group work skills, which is something I haven’t done in a while. As intimidating as it initially was, collaborating is a very important skill to have. Completing this project allowed me to learn that everyone works in different ways, no one person thinks the exact same. A lot of patience was needed while gathering information and sharing it with my group members. Collaborating with others is an important part at growth, it helps stimulate and shape the paths to then go in. That is the CLO that represents the growth had from this piece. Working closely with others on a huge research project is something that occurs all the time, yet I hadn’t had much experience or patience with it. Now, I’ve grown to understand others; working patterns and systems, allowing me to alleviate unnecessary stresses from affecting my portion of the work.

Without a doubt, this FIQWS course helped shape my writing and overall process of construction for writing pieces in a positive way. I intend on using all that I have learned throughout this course in my college career and then on.