• 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.
One thing that I’ve noticed I have improved on a lot throughout the semester so far is being able to give a helpful and effective peer review. Before ever taking an English class in college I hadn’t had much of a positive experience with peer review. None of the people who had ever tried to edit my paper in high school really cared about it so it was never helpful for me. After learning about what makes a good peer review vs a bad one, as well as going over each of the topics to cover with your partner, in class peer review has been one of the most helpful parts of the revision process for me this semester. I feel like I’m really able to dive into someone’s paper and give them helpful, honest feedback because I know that they feel comfortable doing the same. Another aspect that I really appreciate is that everyone in class is trying to make their papers as well written as possible so we can achieve the grade we want. This makes me feel a lot less anxious about someone reading my paper and thinking that I’m stupid because it’s not as good as theirs – something that I used to struggle with a lot in high school.
• Be able to integrate their ideas with those of others using summary, paraphrase, quotation, analysis, and synthesis of relevant sources.
I think that through some of the activities that we’ve done with summary and paraphrase I know how to use both of those tools a lot more effectively. However, I don’t really ever think to use paraphrase because most of the time I’ll just use direct quotes. I think that I could improve a lot on how much paraphrase I use just to start making my essays more about my own voice and opinion. The one main thing that I also have trouble with is being confident in adding my own voice – as mentioned in my previous blog post. I can see myself using my voice more in my essays than I had previously, but I think that I still have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to smoothly integrating that with the required readings. This is something that I’m going to put more effort into doing in my final essay with the use of the templates given in chapter nine of They Say, I Say.
