My Reflective Essay Shannon Leak
Dear Ms. Moody (or Dr. Sullivan),
This is my reflective letter to explain what I have learned during the Composition II course this semester that I feel has helped me improve my understanding of composing a document whether it is computerized or standard but specifically online. Using “Composure, Design, Advocate” by Anne Frances Wysocki, this course helped to teach and train me some of the aspects and details of composing for a computerized or an online publication. I now have a better understanding of different characteristics of writing such as rhetoric or the direction I want to take my project or how the context of the place and time affects how my audience connects to my work. In the beginning of Composition II, I felt I had more of an understanding of what it took to type a paper or research but quickly realized that I would be learning quite a bit more than I envisioned.
As I started the coursework beginning with comparing the two Adele articles in Module 2, I quickly realized that I was not as confident in my understanding of comparing an online publication as oppose to standard paper publication. My unsuccessful attempt at this course before due to my lack of discipline and focus gave me a sense of uncertainty but my growth and maturity festered a determination that I was not going to be denied. As the course progressed to the following modules and I improved my focused I began to understand that I had to take an open minded approach to my research at each level. I began to gain confidence in my understanding and at this point feel I can adequately produce a respectable online essay.
I was not without challenges as I progressed through this course. My main challenge was staying within the purpose of my documentation. I knew coming in that this was a hurdle that needed to be overcome to succeed in this course. Some to the essay assignments required that multiple drafts to help me defeat this literary foe. There were great tips in the virtual text book “Composure, Design, Advocate” that armed me with techniques to taper my essays to focus on the topics.
Abobe Slate was like a toy that I have wished existed but never imagine existed only to have a friend bring it to class for a show and tell presentation. The different features used to build an online publication were fantastic. The visual interactive documentation was great to me. I really enjoy what this program allowed for an author to grab the audience with pictures, videos and web links in a scrolling template. Just awesome.
I do feel I have room to improve. Composition and Literature were never my strong suit but after this class I feel better about how to compose writing. While I did reasonable ok in this course I did see a common criticism of “more explanation” with my writing. This tells me that I need to add more information from my research to support my topic.
I am not sure what my best work is to date. I feel each of my assignments could have been better but my assessment of “Radio Silence” I feel is when I started to gain more confidence is my ability to write an analytical essay.