Jydell Hill

Professor Metenko 

12/10/24

                                      

Description: In this assignment, I discussed my journey in this class, including my growth overtime. I will also explain some of the assignments we completed during the course and how I overcame the challenges.

 Self Assessment

   In reflecting on my work, I’ve seen significant growth in my ability to create engaging and informative content throughout the semester. My research into the impacts of different diets on energy levels and well being has deepened my understanding of health topics, allowing me to craft memes that are both entertaining and educational. I’ve worked hard to refine my visual and written communication skills, ensuring that my messages are clear and impactful. Moving forward, I aim to experiment with different styles  of humour and improve the visual quality of my work to better connect with my audience. Overall, I’m proud of the progress I’ve made and excited for the opportunities ahead. 

    Before getting into the semester the class’s first assignment was “What Makes Good Writing?” which was after my professor finished with the syllabus and what we could expect over the semester. Which is crazy because I remember this day like it was yesterday. At first I thought this course would be very hard because this was my first day in college. After all, It wasn’t very difficult. All my classmates wrote what we thought good writing was and then had discussions and shared our thoughts and agreed and disagree with each other. We explored various perspectives on good writing. Some students emphasized clarity and coherence, while others focused on creativity and originality. The professor highlighted the importance of understanding the audience and purpose of the writing. This discussion opened my eyes to the many facets of effective writing. This day in class made me feel very comfortable because I like how none of my classmates wasn’t shy. This is my first assignment I did in my English course shown below.

To continue, we have read and analyzed samples of narrative essays to see what it looks like perfectly written because this was the first essay we worked on. A narrative essay is like telling a story! It’s a way to share an experience or a series of events, usually from your own life but it can be fiction too, in a way that makes the reader feel like they’re right there with you. It’s a great way to engage your readers and make your writing personal and relatable. That’s exactly what I did.  After reading several samples of narrative essays, I began to understand the key elements that make a strong narrative. These elements include a clear structure, engaging characters, vivid descriptions, and a compelling plot. The samples we read were diverse, ranging from personal anecdotes to fictional stories, each had a unique voice and style. After looking at samples of narrative essays we had to write our own narrative essay. I chose to focus on a memorable experience based on what happened during years ago that has a significant impact on me. I started off by outlining the main events of the story, ensuring there was a clear beginning, middle, and end. I paid close attention to the details, using descriptive language to paint a vivid picture of the reader. I wanted to make sure that the emotions and experiences were conveyed effectively by drawing the reader into my world. After several drafts and revisions, I felt a bit confident in my essay. This process did not only improve my writing skills but also helped me to reflect on and appreciate the experiences that shaped me. During the peer review, two of my classmates read my narrative and they related to my story. In fact, one of their narratives was similar to mine and we had a great discussion. 

   Furthermore, our next essay was a bibliography. Which contained a lot of research. In a bibliography, is a list of all the sources you used when researching for a paper or project. It includes books, articles, websites, and other resources. It usually goes at the end of your work and gives credit to the original authors. A bibliography is essential for academic writing, as it allows readers to verify the sources of information and to explore the topic further. There are different formats which are MLA, APA, and Chicago. I used the MLA format. It’s very important to cite your sources correctly in the bibliography because this can avoid plagiarism. In my bibliography I used all different types of sources. One mistake I made in my bibliography was my citations. I thought I had my citations correct but when I sent my draft in and gotten feedback from it my citations were messed up. 

  The bibliography assignment was very time consuming, it took very long to get done but I still turned it in on time. This wasn’t a very easy assignment for me because this assignment had a lot of steps to it. writing a bibliography was not very fun to me but I’m happy I got to write a bibliography. There were some things I did wrong in this essay like, not putting the correct citations, putting the long links instead of the shorter links, and lastly, not putting them in alphabetical order. From my bibliography, I learned the importance of properly citing all the sources I used in my research. It helped me understand how to give credit to the original authors and avoid plagiarism. Additionally, it made me more aware of the different citation styles I searched, which was MLA, APA, and Chicago, and how to format each type of source correctly. Overall, it emphasized the need for accuracy and thoroughness in academic writing. 

          We did an argumentative essay in two ways and a media adaptation. For the argumentative essay we had to write a persuasive essay based on the reflection annotated bibliography which I failed to do in my draft because to be honest I didn’t read the part where I had to add the sources I used in the reflection annotated bibliography. One thing I sometimes fail to do is read directions but when I get feedback from my drafts I know what to do next. I realized this has to stop. I made a clear and arguable position. The only thing I really messed up at was not adding my sources into my essay. Whenever I wrote an argumentative essay I always mess up writing in first and second person instead of writing in third person which I realized that had to stop. This was mainly the problem I had with my argumentative essay and as I said before citing my sources. My essay was about “ How does fast food affect health?” I feel like this is a very argumentative question. 

   The second part of this assignment was the media adaptation. For this assignment I had to convert my essay into a modern medium. I decided to make a series of memes which was 4 slides and then I added 2 extra slides so it can be funny to the audience but the other 4 was actually how it might affect the person. This assignment was very fun to make because all I did was edit and add pictures. The only thing that wasn’t very fun about this assignment was finding an app to edit on because some of the apps didn’t have the right features. Also finding the pictures for the memes was difficult too because I tried to find pictures with the same people but I couldn’t find the right pictures but atleast I tried. I wanted the images to connect with each other so the audience can have a better understanding.