Reflection On Critiquing My Writing

At its core, “Responding--Really Responding-- to Other Students’ Writing” is about correcting the common misconceptions and fantasies that many students seem to possess about peer reviewing. Richard Straub, a former professor at Florida State University, starts off portraying the mindset of a student going about peer reviewing in all of the wrong ways (Bishop 162). Some of the mistakes are things like “Make your comments brief.” or “Don’t praise anything really... no need to get harsh or cut throat either.”

We took into consider what our classmates said about our drafts and set to work developing our 3 page essay. Once we were confident with that work, we submitted it to our professor and awaited feedback. In regards to both peer editors and my professor, I did not

Journal 3 Richard Straub’s reading, “Responding-Really Responding-to other students’ writing” clarifies ways to respond a student’s paper. At first I thought responding to other student’s writing means to reply with feedback but as I go further towards the reading it is actually more than just feedback. Certain points that I took from Richard Straub’s reading is how a responder should act as a friend rather than a teacher when responding, must not respond short and sweet, what to address in the comments and must praise and criticize. His suggestions are key strategies that must be followed in order to achieve progress as a responder. In “Responding-Really Responding-to other students’ writing” by Richard Straub’s offers ways for readers to approach a student’s paper, therefore, achieving the responders mission towards helping the writer make better decisions when writing a good paper.

He feels struggled. He had to work harder and received a failing grade on the first paper. However, he said “I was both devastated and determined, my not belonging was verified but I was not ready to be shut down.” He decided to search the school’s library to look up the publishing’s of his Professor. He would write his paper, research the Professors writing style, and then revise his own writing.

John Kaag begins his article by stating that the desire of any “good student” is to be told that they’re paper was “flawless.” He then goes on to recount his experience during the 9th grade of being told exactly that, and how when he told his mother, she became upset and decided to show him the error of his ways. He says that from this experience he learned the value of criticism. From this point on he talks about his first case of writers block and of how writing forces you to look inwardly.

ENG-122 Reflective Essay My writing process has changed tremendously over the course of this class. I feel more accomplished, confident and I feel sometimes that my ideas and thoughts just come in to my mind out of nowhere and I start writing about anything now. I pay attention to my punctuation and grammar more as I have polished them more now, not only when I write but then others write as well. I am constantly looking for errors and I highly think this is helping me a lot in my career.

She also claims that grading college papers is a waste of time for teachers as well since not many students utilize the suggestions and constructive criticism offered by the teachers “if your average college-goer does manage to read through her professor’s comments, she will likely view them as a grievous insult to her entire person, abject proof of how this cruel, unfeeling

This semester I completed Composition 2. During the course I wrote three essays. Like Composition 1, I had the option to rewrite my papers after seeing the grade. Having the chance to rewrite my papers was very beneficial because I could improve my grade, and more importantly, learn what I was doing wrong. Amongst my writings, three major flaws stood out.

Thou shalt not start a paper with a question, and thou shalt not speak directly to the reader. The terror in my eyes was evident across the room. Everybody knew that I was absolutely screwed and they felt bad for me. When I got my rough draft back from Mrs. Graff, it looked as if it was delivered from a war zone, soaked in red, and marked up unrecognizably. On the top of my paper next to my name was the grade I would have gotten if this was my final paper.

She stated in her paper that for many students the idea of revision makes them uncomfortable and can lead to them not spending very much time working on it. She found that the students were never taught how to truly revise their essays (Sommers 380-382). After reading and

Dr. lmre incorporated many different activities that assisted me to progress in my writing style and process. Peer reviews were something that I felt was very helpful. I also believed that having the group conferences with Dr. Imre really helped me on building the necessary revisions for my papers. My overall experience in this class was unbelievably helpful and now I feel that I can write any paper without a problem.

Now, in view of my approach to writing, it has changed a lot during this semester. Before this class, I didn’t like anyone reading my paper before it was due. But, now I don’t mind having someone else reading my work. I have learned that having a second opinion on my work

Before this class, I perceived myself as a poor writer. When someone has never been taught the proper way to write a paper, you struggle through college SOC 300 (Dr. Stephen Adair) and hoped to get more out of SOC 478 (Dr. Fumilayo Showers) as you attend classes. I never thought about the process that it took to write any paper before these classes. However, these two professors have been very inspirational toward my writing.

This paper was probably one of the hardest paper I had to write just because I felt like I was on my own. I was scared at first but i felt like this helped me learn how to properly look and analyze a speech or a writing in general. One way this helped was I highlighted what I thought was a rhetorical device and I had to properly analyze it and see what he/ she is trying to accomplish through his or her writing.

Throughout the term there has been many writing assignments —big or small— that helped reflect my writing process or the process itself. In the beginning of the course I felt like I was an “ok” writer, but lacked some skills such as: organization, sentence variety, and vocabulary. Also, I did not like to write and had a feeling of dislike when forced to write. I felt like I improved on everything I wanted and was seen throughout the semester.