Final Self-Assessment

My first semester in college is finally coming to an end, I have learned so many things throughout this course that has helped me grow as a writer. This portfolio contains three works assigned for our FIQWS course, a literary narrative, a exploratory essay, and a critical analysis essay. Each work is unique in their own way and each work came with their separate challenges. These three papers not only show my growth as time went on this semester but they all show how I can switch up and apply my knowledge when writing about different topics or when I am asked to incorporate different focus points. For this assessment I will share what each paper was about, my thought process, and where I felt I did well versus where I can improve.

Our very first assignment was to write a literary narrative of a small moment from our lives that was significant to us. I chose to write about my relationship with writing and I started from the very beginning of my academic career. I zoomed in on a small moment from when I was in elementary school and what my writing experience was like for me at that time. I went through many struggles and obstacles, as stated in my paper writing was never my strongest suit. As I went on into high school I faced newer and more difficult challenges that further complicated my relationship with writing. Writing for me was never a passion, I simply wrote what I needed to write for assignments and that was all. As much as I disliked writing, it was a big part of my everyday life at school and it was something I needed to do. I found that throughout this writing journey I have grown. Before I would simply do what is asked of me just to get by, but I learned to push myself. As much as I hate to write, I hate failing even more and I refuse to fail so motivating myself to do better is something that I am still working on. For starters I know that I did well in telling my story thoroughly and with detail. I definitely think that I can improve in many ways. To improve this paper I would add more of the meaning of the my small moments, as in meaning I mean I would explain in detail why this moments were important to be.

The second paper included in this portfolio was an exploratory essay about a topic we chose from our Russian literature course. Students were asked to not provide their opinions or say what they think they believe but we had use sources from our research that spoke for itself, strictly sticking to the facts. We have learned about many different works of literature from 19th century Russian and I chose to write about a specific character type known as the superfluous man. For this assignment I wrote about the superfluous man and this character was represented throughout literature. First I provided a clear definition on what a superfluous man actually is for those who aren’t familiar and I went along to discuss various books that we have read that provide different representations of the average superfluous man of this time period. I did well in providing evidence from my sources and connecting the sources back to my theme and thesis statement. I can improve actually finding better sources. For this paper we were required to get our sources from the CUNY library website and the database for this website is very tricky. When searching for articles that connect to your topic, you have to be very specific in what you search and this made the process difficult. Although I encountered some trouble finding sources, I still managed to find my sources that helped me backup my thesis statement.

For the last paper assigned for this course we has to write a critical analysis paper on either the topic we previously wrote about in the second paper or we had the choice to choose a different topic. Since I was very well familiar with the topic of the superfluous man I chose to stick with it and continue on with my research. The difference between this paper and the exploratory essay is that we get to choose a side and make a argument. For example I choose to write about how in 19th century Russian literature, the average superfluous man is praised instead of exposed for their narcissistic traits. I supported my thesis statement with further evidence using different sources to add on to my topic. Instead of simply stating what I found in my research, we were asked to make an argument, almost as if we were trying to convince our readers to side with our statement. Speaking for myself, this paper was the most difficult to write. Forming my own opinion and argument was not difficult, finding sources to back up what I had to say was the challenge. Specifically, I wanted to choose sources of either actual books that included descriptions of superfluous man in them and also articles written about superfluous man, and their traits whether they were psychological or not. Although it was not easy I still managed, I honestly would put more effort into this paper if given the chance to do so.

For each paper I do believe that I provided a strong point of view and argument. These three papers are the beginning of a very long journey, this is the starting point. My first semester is finished and I can honestly say that it did not go as well as I had hoped. Writing is a breeze for some and for other like myself, we require that extra push and effort. Although I do believe that i could have done better, I still am proud of my improvement and this journey. Writing takes time to perfect and I am still in the learning stages but I know that I will improve more and more as time goes on and I am ready for that change.