My “Self Essays”

I think of the three essays which I have written most recently, the Introduction, Reflection, and Conclusion essays, as self essays because they are more personal and the topic is my personal growth and writing process. I like my intro. essay most. I found it fun to write, because it made me take time to sit back and reflect upon my growth as a writer over the years. I found this exercise made me feel good about my writing development, and although I have a very strange and unique writing process I think it is well adapted for my auditory learning style. Overall my only concern with the essays is that there were occasions where I wanted to address Professor Scott directly and I chose to do so with the familiar “you” form. I’m not sure if I want to change this so that the essays could apply to a broader audience or if I want to keep them specific to the class. I think that since she is the primary audience for my portfolio I will not change my pronoun choice. I generalized the three major assignments but I feel that these essay are just to explain my writing style and process to Professor Scott specifically and no one else so it would be silly to say “the reader”.

Per editing

Throughout this year I have struggled with per editing. In the past I have not had much experience with critiquing my peers’ work and with the practice I did have I knew the people and their writing style well so I felt comfortable giving them suggestions. In this class aside from the people in my group I am not well acquainted with individuals and am even less familiar with their writing styles. For this reason I feel awkward responding to many of my peers in this class. I feel like they may take my critiques as a personal offence. I have tried to combat this by including positive feedback as well as suggestions, but I still feel that I may come across rather harsh. I remember receiving papers back in middle school and feeling as though my teacher had torn apart my paper and brutally beating it into the form that she desired. This is what I fear my peers will feel.