Self Assessment

Hello, my name is Awa Kouyate, and I will take you through my portfolio self-assessment of the FIQWS course Composition For U.S Jewish Experience. In this course we learned and developed rhetorical terms and course learning outcomes. Through the writing process of all the essays that I have worked on I used most of the course learning outcomes that was discussed practice systematic application of citation conventions, compose texts that integrate my stance with appropriate sources, engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes and recognize and practice key rhetorical terms. Starting off with Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations we did this through the semester by reading many short stories and novels about Jewish immigrants like “Bloodshed”, “The Loudest Voice” and “Call it Sleep”. For the application of citations, I would say that I’ve gradually improved with using them from the argumentative essay to the argumentative essay on two texts. In the argumentative essay I wrote about “Call It Sleep” by Henry Roth where we explore the challenges of language that an immigrant Jewish boy named David goes through while assimilation. An example of how I would cite it was “Kentcha see? Id’s coz id’s a machine” (39). Compared to how I would cite in the argumentative essay on two texts where I use the texts “Eli the Fanatic” by Philip Roth and “The Loudest Voice” by Grace Paley. “Particularly loud, clear voice read with lots of expression” (Paley 2). In the argumentative essay I forgot to put the author’s last name before the page number. The next course learning outcome, develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing, I created outline and notes for each essay for this course. I would say that the 2nd paper outline was less organized than the final paper which made me struggle with writing that paper. The next course learning outcome that I used to the fullest was Engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes, especially for the last two essays that I’ve previously mentioned. For both essays I implemented the feedback that I’ve not only received from my peer reviewer but also from Prof.N. For example, In the argumentative essay I was struggling a lot. In my first draft I was talking about the challenges that immigrants faced and listed examples of them. My peer reviewer advised that I should rewrite my thesis statement “As we explore David’s life more deeply, we come across moments where he effortlessly talks to his mother in Yiddish. Roth effectively captures this by accurately spelling the Yiddish words in English.” Then the feedback that I’ve received from Prof. N then helped me change my paper. It was that I should write about language in “Call it Sleep” because I mentioned it in the last paragraph of my first draft. For the personal narrative I used the practice of key rhetorical terms for my paper. I used a lot of pathos to describe my exploration of my parent’s culture as an American born with immigrant parents. I also used Logos for the final paper where I was arguing that the influence of one’s community begs to question their religious identity and their individual desires through the pressures of assimilation. All the papers that I have written, I’ve used Compose texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation. The first paper consisted of summaries and interpretations of my time in my parents’ home country. For the last two, it is composed of summary, critical analysis and argumentation. I would use critical analysis of evidence that I found in the text I was using to back up my argument. There are some learning outcomes that I didn’t use or understand. For example, Understanding and using print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences is one of the outcomes that I don’t understand. For the other outcome, locate research sources in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet, I did use a book that can from Dr. Kratka’s office their first time I wrote my final paper but then when I changed my research question and thesis, I ended up not using the book because it didn’t correlate with my argument. All in all, I would say that my writing has progressed a lot especially from paper 2 to paper 3 because I started to reflect on what went wrong in the 2nd paper. I made a plan of things to do and not do for the final paper, like organizing my thoughts in my outline and seeking help from Prof. N or Dr. Kratka and it paid off.