Purpose The purpose of a self-assessment is to practice strategies and develop skills that help you assess your own work, then reflect on them. I know that it is very tempting to simply want your teacher to tell you how you could improve your paper, but that will only help you on one specific paper. In order to be good writers, we need to practice all the parts of the writing process and use it constantly and consistently to assess our own work, revise our own work, and ultimately be the ones who determine if its quality is at the appropriate level for the task. This is what will help you be successful in other classes, as you will not always have someone telling you something is good or passing before you submit it – you need to develop these skills and use them to further your education. It is like that old saying that goes something like this: Give someone a fish and they will eat today, but teach them to fish and they will eat for a lifetime.
My goal is to help you learn and practice the tools that will allow you to keep learning and developing with every assignment you have, both presently and in the future, not simply to help you write one essay well. Instructions Please read through the instructions on the self-assessment activity document below, and use it to complete the assignment. Click here for Self-Assessment Activity What to Submit Here for Credit Please submit the filled out activity here as credit. ***If Word is not working for you, all questions are below so you can submit your answers via Google docs or the text box entry (please number them, no need to retype the questions, though). College Essay Self-Assessment Activity for Revision and Learning Please download this assignment and type right into the boxes in order to complete it (the boxes will expand as needed when you type). When you are done, you can save it and upload it for submission. Part 1: The Essay How did your essay turn out? Let’s think about your essay more carefully! Please answer all of the below questions in this part with a minimum of 50 words (you can definitely say more!) How good do you feel about your essay in general and why? For example, are you happy with it, not happy, something different, etc.? As you reread your essay and think about it, what do you identify as your strengths in writing and why? In your answer, please give me a specific example of at least one strength in your essay. Knowing that you have an opportunity to revise this essay and turn it into your research paper, what revisions would you make to strengthen it and why? In general, where do you see room for development in your writing and/or skills based on this essay and your knowledge of other writing you have done? Why? Part 2: The Writing Process Using the writing process helps us to develop clear, organized, developed ideas, and pushes us to think more deeply about what we are writing and why we are writing. What does your writing process look like and how well did you utilize it?
Think about everything you did from start to finish in writing this essay, and what activities and work you used from the class to help you, then complete the following: Please describe your writing process honestly and in detail, such as how you started, what you revised, what you did to prepare for writing, what you did while writing, etc. This is for you, so really, be honest! If your process was to panic write everything at 2 AM, then say that! I am not here to judge your process, but to try to help you understand your own process, your needs, what you are doing that works, and where you might want to try something new. (minimum 50 words). Please reflect on your process and think about what works and what didn’t, and why. Will you change anything in this process for the next essay, or for assignments in other classes? Why?
To answer this, think about what it means to have a writing process that works for you and helps you get through the challenges of writing, and where you are at in terms of figuring out and using this process. (minimum 100 words) Part 3: Feedback What kind of feedback do you want from me, and why? Another way to think of this question is what do you want me to look at more closely, or what do you specifically want feedback on (ex. your thesis)? Please be as specific as possible here! Minimum 50 words (can be more like a list, or more like a narrative).
