Alec Gustafson
Prof. Glasgow
English 250
2 August 2017
English 250 Reflection
Looking back on this summer section of English 250 I realized that I have really grown in the subjects that were mainly focused on. We practiced writing essay’s and letters, and we practiced using electronics as another form of media. This essay will go over each assignment and how they relate to the WOVE modes, also how I use my peers and mentors inputs to correctly revise works that I have done. We focused on Identity and Social Justice in our current society, my eyes were opened to many different issues that I hadn’t noticed before taking this class.
The WOVE modes are communication forms and are known as Writing, Oral, Visual, an Electronic modes of communication. Our first three assignments focused solely on the writing aspect of communication. We wrote a letter to Professor Glasgow about ourselves, what Identity meant and, what made us the person we are today as our first assignment. The second assignment was a textual analysis of an article that we read on our own and how it related to a rhetorical appeal such as Logos, Ethos, and Pathos. An annotated bibliography was our third assignment, and that was fairly short. That dealt more with finding research and summarizing, but it still used the writing mode. Each assignment was a writing where we had to learn to cite our sources and use evidence from research. Our fourth assignment, creating a podcast, focused and combined the Writing, Oral, and Electronic modes of communication. We wrote a script that was revised and researched, and then had to record ourselves reading what we had written. We used the Electronic mode of communication to then distribute it so that our class mates could hear our podcast. We did not use the visual mode of communication at all, but that was covered in my English 105 class. I feel that I learned a great deal about how to use writing, oral, and electronic modes to communicate effectively to an audience.
In the first assignment I did not use my peers as a resource to help with peer review and editing my essay and thesis. I just wrote my essay like I always do, which means I write the first draft and turn it in. I have learned through this course that a major key to success in writing and in life is to use the resources available to you at all times. In the second Assignment I did have others read my essay but they did not know the context in which we were supposed to be writing. My mother was an english teacher at Ames High School until she was promoted to an instructional coaching position. With her background in English I figured she would be a good person to have read my essay and look for problems in it. The down side to having her look at it though, was that she did not know the context that it was written in. When using your resources, I have learned that they need to understand what the assignment is and what your goal for the end product is. Otherwise, they are just reading the paper and thinking that its good without the context.
Overall, this class has helped me strengthen my use of Writing skills and resources and my use of the Oral and Electronic modes of communication.