111 F21 Reflective Essay

ENGL 111 – Fall 2021
Reflective Essay
Due Date: Thursday, December 16 on Canvas by 11:59 p.m.
Important Details
Length: 1,200-1,500 words
Percentage of final grade: 7%
Number of sources: n/a
Citation style: n/a (If you use sources, then you must cite them properly)
Document design: 12-point font, 1” margins, Times New Roman or Calibri font
Acceptable file types: .doc, .docx, .rtf, .pdf (do not submit Google Docs or you will not receive credit)
Corresponding chapters of Let’s Talk: 1, 2, 4, 7
Assignment Description
This essay affords you the chance to reflect on your writing from the semester and evaluate what you’ve
gotten out of the course. You will need to show that you can evaluate the strengths of your work and
that you understand what you do well, what you have learned and improved on over the semester, and
what aspects of your writing will continue to require your attention. This moment of reflection is where
process and product come together. As one of your readers, I have not witnessed your writing process in
its entirety—I haven’t watched you write, seen your notes, heard you talk to friends about your projects,
seen you struggle, etc. This essay allows you to share with me your process as well as your view on how
well you have met the stated objectives of the course.
Your essay should be approximately 1,200-1,500 words. In it, you should discuss the work you’ve done
in relation to the goals of each essay. Try to offer a sense of what you see as your greatest strengths as a
writer, what areas you want to develop, what has been most worthwhile in this course, and how you
want to work on your writing in the future.
Getting Started
To begin this assignment, I’d recommend looking at all the documents from this semester: assignment
sheets, drafts, feedback, and your notes. This will help you understand how you developed and evolved
as a writer.
Research Requirements and Where to Look

You do not need to do research for this assignment. If, however, you do, you must include proper
citations and a references page.
Reading Recommendations
The best reading you can do for this assignment is your work from the semester. You might have
forgotten about all the work you’ve done this semester. This is your opportunity to remind yourself how
much you’ve achieved. Don’t rush this process. Read slowly and thoroughly.
Questions to consider when structuring your draft

In your essay, you must address the following issues and themes we have discussed throughout the
semester:
Process Questions 1
1. What specific writing strategies did I use to complete this work?
2. Which strategies were the most or least productive?
3. Did this writing project require new strategies, or did I rely on past strategies?
4. What was the biggest problem I faced in writing this piece, and how successfully did I solve that
problem?
5. What has been my major content-level revision so far?
6. What were my favorite sentence- or word-level revisions?
7. What did I learn about myself as a writer or about writing in general by writing this paper?
Subject-Related Questions
1. How did the subject of my writing cause me to “wallow in complexity”?
2. What tensions did I encounter between my ideas/experiences and those of others? Between the
competing ideas about the subject in my own mind?
3. Did I change my mind or come to see something differently as a result of writing this work?
4. What passages show my independent thinking about the subject? My unresolved problems or
mixed feelings about it?
5. What were the major content problems, and how successfully did I resolve them?
6. What did writing about this subject teach me?
Rhetoric-Related Questions
1. How did the audience I imagined influence me in writing this paper?
2. How did my awareness of genre influence my choices about subject matter and rhetorical
features?
3. What do I want readers to take away from reading my work?
4. What rhetorical strategies please me most (my use of evidence, my examples, my delayed
thesis, etc.)? What effect do I hope these strategies have on my audience?
5. How would I describe my voice in this work? Is this voice appropriate? Is it similar to my
everyday voice or to the voices I have used in other kinds of writing?
6. Did I take any risks in writing this?
7. What do readers expect from this genre, and did I fulfill those expectations?
Self-Assessment Questions
1. What are the most significant strengths and weaknesses in this writing?
2. Will others also see these as important strengths or weaknesses? Why or why not?
3. What specific ideas and plans do I have for revision?
You might consider writing one paragraph for each of these topics in which you discuss all papers
(Framework A). Alternatively, you could discuss each paper and how these topics relate to each paper
separately (Framework B).
Framework A
Introduction Introduce the most important techniques, ideas, and skills you learned this
semester.
1
Questions adapted from Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing
Process • Examples from Paper 1
• Examples from Paper 2
Subject-Related • Examples from Paper 1
Rhetoric-Related • Examples from Paper 1
Self-Assessment • Examples from Paper 1
Conclusion How you will apply the skills you learned in ENGL 111 to your future courses and
other writing endeavors.
Framework B
Introduction Introduce the most important techniques, ideas, and skills you learned this
semester.
Paper 1 How you used process, subject-related, rhetoric-related, and self-assessment in
this paper.
this paper.
this paper.
this paper.
Conclusion How you will apply the skills you learned in ENGL 111 to your future courses and
other writing endeavors.
Grading
I will be looking for a clearly articulated and well-thought-out reflection about your work this semester.
Your reflection should be well written, incorporating comments and feedback I provided for you during
the semester. You might also include lessons learned in the IQW or other in-class work. Although this is
not required, it might help round out your reflection.

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ENGL 111 – Fall 2021

Due Date: Thursday, December 16 on Canvas by 11:59 p.m.

Research Requirements and Where to Look

Questions to consider when structuring your draft

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