Critical Reflection Essay
By: Chris Bolitho
The past semester has been a long semester for me, mostly because I knew the whole time I had a lot of writing to do. I have never been very fond of formal writing assignments; they have played a major part in my struggles with higher education. The class has been quite beneficial to my academic voice and critical thinking skills. A few of the goals of the class were to get the students to critically think and read, be able to write with an academic voice, and learn to synthesis others writings to support our ideas. I believe my AMS paper has demonstrated my ability to critically analysis others reads, form my own academic opinion and support my opinions and ideas with others’ academic articles. In the following paragraphs I will elaborate on: the use of my critical thinking skills in choosing and problematizing my topic, how and why I picked my sources, and how my writing has changed.
Throughout my English 111 class I have made an effort to critically read academic articles, where as in the past I would have not even read the articles. The first article that caught my attention was “Disliking Books at an Early Age” by Gerald Graff I was amazed that someone, who had a similar dislike for books as me, could be an author. So I started reading all the articles I was assigned and when I read “The “Banking” Concept of Education” by Paulo Freire I knew poor learning could not all be the fault of the students. It was not until I read “Angels on a Pin: The Barometer Story” by Alexander Calandra and “What We May Really be Teaching Students” by John Tagg that I decided I wanted my topic to be about grade obsession. I wanted to do this because I never really had seen or thought about possible problems that schools’ grading systems could cause the student. It was surprisingly easy to problematize grades obsession because grades are a huge motivating factor to students and faculty, so by showing flaws of the grading system readers would see the flaws in motivation of students and teachers.
I didn’t pick my topic before I picked my sources. Instead I got my topic from the sources I could relate to and understand the most. Although I couldn’t use a quote from every source I selected, I like to have the authors speak for themselves. I feel as though I am not giving the authors the credit or respect they deserve when I try to speculate what they might say. The Authors have already said what they wanted to in a way more articulate and well thought-out than what I could come up with.
Although I have learned a lot in English 111, I was told my first copy of my AMS was not showing enough competency in the class to get a passing grade. At first I agreed it could use some work, which I then went through and fixed. While going back through I did learn a lot about why it was not considered acceptable. I feel I have a style that is not strictly academic, although I don’t think my style would be considered the best I do believe it satisfied all the requirements to get a passing grade. But on the submission of my revised AMS I was told it was still not good enough to earn a passing grade. I sat down with my teacher who drew arrows and triangles and thought I should change how I worded my thoughts and conclusions. So for the grade, not because I thought the changes should be made, I revised my AMS again putting it into a triangle shaped cookie cutter with a specific question to answer in each line of the triangle. In my opinion I don’t think every Academic Multisource Synthesis paper should be structured exactly the same due to the fact it is setting limits on creativity.
I have thought and worked very hard on the ideas in my paper, as well as put effort in to make multiple revisions to my paper. I no longer see major errors in my paper that would cause it to be below a B. I have problematized an issue and used sources to support my claims. I used my voice and even told how the issues affect adult learning. I am not the best writer but I should not get a lower grade due to the fact others are better. I have learned a lot in this class about critically thinking, rhetorical strategies, how to better use sources, how to problematize an issues, and many other things. I believe I deserve a good grade for my AMS because I have gained a lot by writing it.
By: Chris Bolitho
The past semester has been a long semester for me, mostly because I knew the whole time I had a lot of writing to do. I have never been very fond of formal writing assignments; they have played a major part in my struggles with higher education. The class has been quite beneficial to my academic voice and critical thinking skills. A few of the goals of the class were to get the students to critically think and read, be able to write with an academic voice, and learn to synthesis others writings to support our ideas. I believe my AMS paper has demonstrated my ability to critically analysis others reads, form my own academic opinion and support my opinions and ideas with others’ academic articles. In the following paragraphs I will elaborate on: the use of my critical thinking skills in choosing and problematizing my topic, how and why I picked my sources, and how my writing has changed.
Throughout my English 111 class I have made an effort to critically read academic articles, where as in the past I would have not even read the articles. The first article that caught my attention was “Disliking Books at an Early Age” by Gerald Graff I was amazed that someone, who had a similar dislike for books as me, could be an author. So I started reading all the articles I was assigned and when I read “The “Banking” Concept of Education” by Paulo Freire I knew poor learning could not all be the fault of the students. It was not until I read “Angels on a Pin: The Barometer Story” by Alexander Calandra and “What We May Really be Teaching Students” by John Tagg that I decided I wanted my topic to be about grade obsession. I wanted to do this because I never really had seen or thought about possible problems that schools’ grading systems could cause the student. It was surprisingly easy to problematize grades obsession because grades are a huge motivating factor to students and faculty, so by showing flaws of the grading system readers would see the flaws in motivation of students and teachers.
I didn’t pick my topic before I picked my sources. Instead I got my topic from the sources I could relate to and understand the most. Although I couldn’t use a quote from every source I selected, I like to have the authors speak for themselves. I feel as though I am not giving the authors the credit or respect they deserve when I try to speculate what they might say. The Authors have already said what they wanted to in a way more articulate and well thought-out than what I could come up with.
Although I have learned a lot in English 111, I was told my first copy of my AMS was not showing enough competency in the class to get a passing grade. At first I agreed it could use some work, which I then went through and fixed. While going back through I did learn a lot about why it was not considered acceptable. I feel I have a style that is not strictly academic, although I don’t think my style would be considered the best I do believe it satisfied all the requirements to get a passing grade. But on the submission of my revised AMS I was told it was still not good enough to earn a passing grade. I sat down with my teacher who drew arrows and triangles and thought I should change how I worded my thoughts and conclusions. So for the grade, not because I thought the changes should be made, I revised my AMS again putting it into a triangle shaped cookie cutter with a specific question to answer in each line of the triangle. In my opinion I don’t think every Academic Multisource Synthesis paper should be structured exactly the same due to the fact it is setting limits on creativity.
I have thought and worked very hard on the ideas in my paper, as well as put effort in to make multiple revisions to my paper. I no longer see major errors in my paper that would cause it to be below a B. I have problematized an issue and used sources to support my claims. I used my voice and even told how the issues affect adult learning. I am not the best writer but I should not get a lower grade due to the fact others are better. I have learned a lot in this class about critically thinking, rhetorical strategies, how to better use sources, how to problematize an issues, and many other things. I believe I deserve a good grade for my AMS because I have gained a lot by writing it.