Abstract: The self assessment essay is a work of self reflection in which I address my progress on the course learning objectives and the changes in writing and literary perception that I have observed throughout the semester.

Maxim Zorkin

ENGL 21001

Professor Carpenter 

5/19/25

    Self Assessment Essay 

Over the course of this semester, my goal was to advance my capabilities in answering all the learning course objectives in some meaningful way. These objectives exist for the purpose of bringing awareness to what makes writing good, and to be followed in order to advance and improve the level of writing that was present prior to the start of the course. A lot of these objectives lean towards improvement on argument and writing articulation, but also to engage with work from peers and understand how your potential audience plays a major role in the outcome of your writing. These objectives challenged me with new elements and styles of writing that I had little experience with, which allowed me to better reflect on my progress with writing. 

Enhancing strategies for reading, drafting and revising is a very important objective among the list, as turning your final draft into a polished piece of work is highly necessary. I believe that I have fairly improved in engaging with the drafting process since I first started the course. For the Formal Art Analysis assignment, starting the paper with a draft that I was aware would see significant revisions greatly helped me in finalizing a much more coherent essay. Part of this was aided by peer review, which relates to developing and engaging with collaborative and social aspects of the writing process as one of the course objectives. Having a peer read my draft and seeing how they interpreted my description of the painting made me realize the changes that would have to be incorporated in the draft. This would help me put together a far more detailed and understandable description of the painting I was analyzing in the assignment, so I see that I have made great progress on those two objectives. Engaging in genre analysis and multimodal composing is an objective which is crucial for understanding what writing style is necessary for the context, as well as the proper audience for that context. The assignment which best helped me progress towards this concept was the Conference Paper assignment. I had to write and formulate my ideas and the subject matter in a way that would mirror a paper which was read to an actual audience during a literature conference. In the assignment I had to acknowledge the audience and their understanding of the subject and my personal topic in order to write a proper conference paper which gave the proper context needed in order to establish my argument concerning Better Call Saul, the topic of my paper. 

The writing process for this assignment was large, and reflecting upon it I can observe my progress on three other course objectives regarding formulating and articulating a stance, practicing the use of libraries and databases for my sources and strengthening my source use practices. For the Conference Paper I raised the primary question concerning the plausibility behind the fictional character James McGill’s criminal circumstances in Better Call Saul, questioning its likelihood of occurring in the real world. To determine my final answer for this, I had to do a fair amount of research regarding the effect of childhood experiences on the psyche of the individual, as people are known for their psychological and developmental malleability during childhood. Thorough analysis of the resources allowed me to judge James McGill’s character by comparing it to the real world effect of childhood experiences on the mental state, and the effect of the individual’s age on the developmental impact of such experiences. The process for this analysis let me improve my capability to find relevant sources and utilize them properly for my observations and arguments. 

An objective which is overall important for writing flexibly in the future is negotiating my writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre and medium. This course has challenged me with writing topics and mediums that I didn’t work with. The Poetry Analysis and Photo Essay assignments were rather new for me in terms of writing because I never engaged with a significant analysis of poetry and have never done a photo essay before. Working on these assignments helped me gain experience and identify my capability with future assignments as such. 

This semester has overall helped me improve my strategies with writing, drafting and argumentation. I have seen improvement in how I find sources, approach them and incorporate them into my arguments. A significant change that I have encountered in this course is my perception of my own writing. Taking the drafting process more seriously helped me understand its importance in writing, and let me observe real improvements in the later drafts. This general improvement in my writing and understanding of the relevant context tied to an assignment will greatly aid me in my future works and articulation of any topic which I choose to discuss.