5. MLA Format.

“Document their work using appropriate conventions (MLA).”

I’m no stranger to the MLA format, I’ve been using it since high school. I’m also happy to say that even though all of my other classes that have writing assignments ask for APA format- not MLA- I haven’t mixed up the two formats in my work. All of my essays this semester have contained: 

• Times New Roman font.
• Font size 12.
• Double spaced.
• Last name, page number (right aligned).
• Centered title.
• Header.
• Separate works cited page.

6. Control of Sentence Structure.

“Control sentence-level error (grammar, punctuation, spelling).”

Local revision is my favorite thing to do. Reading something and nitpicking the absolute hell out of it makes reading interesting (maybe that’s why published works are so boring to me…). My grandmother’s a speech pathologist, so correct grammar was nailed into my dad, which was in turn nailed into me. So I don’t have much room to grow there…

But I have a lot to say about my writing process. I have a lot of ideas that don’t have anything to do with each other and no real way to relate it to required texts. My initial planning phase for essays is just a huge brain dump into a document so that I can better parse through my thoughts and see if there is anything workable among them. But before I can start writing, I have to take a real, official stance to the topic through my thesis, and I’ve struggled for a long time with thesis crafting. I mentioned this in the first learning outcome, but I think it’s applicable here too. Being able to clearly pick out claims within my thesis is the most important thing for my outline. 

This is my favorite example from this semester of my writing process. All my first drafts have two or three pages of just writing and excess ideas that I didn’t end up using in the final draft. 

This screen shot is just a small example of what I need to do to get all of my thoughts organized and cohesive enough to start actually writing. See what I said about color coding? Maybe my obsessive compulsive tendencies are starting to peek through here…

“Be able to critique their own and others’ work by emphasizing global revision early in the writing process and local revision later in the process.”

“Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.”

I know I struggle with active reading and note-taking of important and relevant information. I tend to take too many notes, which is something I’m trying to improve in other classes. While I didn’t find the Brief Guide to Annotations particularly helpful, it did give me inspiration for better note-taking. I love color-coding things if you couldn’t tell from my Barclay paragraphs from the previous learning outcome. I think having a key to better dissecting texts is going to be my strong suit, finding important bits while still acknowledging the things that catch my attention- relevant or not.

Even though I really enjoyed reading and listening to DFW’s This is Water speech my annotations of it are messy, unorganized, and a little off-topic (as shown above). Even though my annotations are… Subpar? I know that I was actively engaged with this text. I was listening to the speech at the same time I was reading it, and that felt so much more interactive than what I’m used to. I have to watch TV with subtitles or else I can’t pay attention to the dialogue and I miss things. I think seeing that clearly translated to reading is an interesting and possibly essential discovery for me and my future as a reader with ADHD.

For Ross Gay’s piece, I think I did a more effective job of both actively reading and taking annotations that are relevant to the topic at hand. Having multiple colors at my disposal was incredibly helpful for organizing my thoughts. While I do wish I had more room in the margins to write, I think having that limited space forces me to condense my thoughts. Nothing’s stopping me from continuing or elaborating on another sheet of paper.

“Be able to integrate their ideas with others using summary, paraphrase, quotation, analysis, and synthesis of relevant sources.”

I’m a sucker for formulas, and I’ve never had a good formula from high school for quotation integration. I am a big fan of the Barclay paragraph formula; it scratches my brain in just the right way. The Barclay paragraph formula is my favorite for integrating quotes to support my claim. Like most skills, this writing style takes practice- and I’ve had plenty of that. I’ve included the color-coded key for highlighting the individual components of the Barclay formula as well as a paragraph taken right from my second essay.

As you can see, the orange and blue bits are short and need more than a little work… The paragraph works, but it’s a little shorter than I’d like and needs better and stronger connections to both my thesis and the two separate texts used. Here is a paragraph I took from my third essay (using the same key).

The introduction and transition parts have gotten meatier and more specific- which can only be a good thing.  My quick explanations of the text in the specific paragraph have gotten better (no more long-winded rambles that really don’t fit), and I’ve improved how I connect the texts to one another. I think I’ve improved greatly in using not only the Barclay method when incorporating quotes, but also paraphrasing (while citing them properly), and working them neatly and nicely into appropriate places in my essays.

“Demonstrate the ability to approach writing as a recursive process that requires substantial revision of drafts for content, organization, and clarity (global revision), as well as editing and proofreading (local revision).”

I am confident in my local revision abilities. My sentence structure and attention to detail have always been a strong suit of mine, so for this learning objective, I am going to focus on global revisions as I have learned and grown the most in this area. My thesis building has improved substantially since September and the first assigned essay.

I’ve been taught to be as clear as possible in your writing to repeat the question or prompt in your thesis along with your answer or stance. While this thesis is fine, my second essay’s thesis is not anywhere near as strong. 

Here I am again, repeating the question in my answer which is a habit I don’t think I’ll ever be able to break. But I think my thesis for my third essay is the strongest- which I suppose is the point of this project, to see how much I’ve grown in these past few months.

My past two essays’ theses have been shorter and more succinct, which is what I’m used to. Getting out of my comfort zone with this thesis building only made my essay stronger, so I will absolutely be utilizing what I’ve learned in English this semester for any future writing assignments.

To briefly touch on local revision, I think my initial planning stage has improved. As you can see in my third essay’s screenshot, in my outline before I wrote I had three clear topics to talk about as well as a direction to head in for my counterargument paragraph.