Summer Faupel English 111 December 8, 2013 Professor Elliott The Academic Multi-Source Synthesis Essay has undoubtedly

been the hardest essay I have ever had to write. I was asked to pick a topic related to learning. This topic had to be a problem that did not necessarily have a straight-cut answer. I had to use many different sources and relate their ideas with each others. After doing that, I then had to relate their related ideas back to my own ideas. My topic involved the graduation of high school students who were illiterate. I believe that students need to be taught basic literacy skills before they are allowed to graduate. This topic sparked a particular interest in me because of the amount of high school students graduating that did not actually know how to read. Having received an extremely good education myself, I could not wrap my head around the fact that there are school systems willing to graduate their illiterate students. I had a genuine interest in wanting to dig deeper into this topic and figure out why this was happening in Americas public schooling systems. For my final draft of the AMS essay, I used five different sources. Four of the five sources I found on the web. Three of the web sources were articles regarding statistical information of the graduating students as well as shared personal stories of illiterate students. My last web source included an interview between a man named Scott Simon and an author Beth Fertig who wrote the book Why cant U teach me 2 read. My non-web source was found in my text book made specifically for my English 111 course. In it read an article authored by Jack Mezirow. Mezirow wrote about the transformative learning theory. I chose these specific sources

because I felt that the statistics and personal stories could relate well together, and the interview could relate well with Mezirows article in my text book. I was mainly looking for accurate information that was easily relatable to each other. Each source I chose made my essay stronger in the appropriate ways. Jack Mezirow has a number of educational qualifications as a professor, as does Michael Kamil whom is included in one of my online sources. Beth Fertig is an author of a book dedicated to literacy, so I knew she would be a good one to include as well. The personal stories tied it all together to show proof that this problem is affecting real people. I chose the sources I did as well as keeping my targeted audience in mind. Essentially, my audience was supposed to be a group of academic professionals. Realistically, my audience was my English 111 professor. I met my audiences needs by thoroughly explaining my problem. This is where the sources involving personal stories became important. Once that part was finished, I began explaining what Beth Fertig had to say about illiteracy. Fertigs ideas were then related to Mezirows and Kamils ideas. Mezirows transformative learning theory was saved for last because I felt it was the strongest point that would catch my audiences attention. Although I felt I obtained strong information throughout my essay, it needed to be revised. I revised this essay over four times. The revision aspect of this paper is what deemed to be the hardest of all. I spent weeks revising it only to be told it still was not correct. I had no idea what I was doing wrong and each time I was sent back for revision I lost a little more hope. My professor kept telling me the same thing: I needed to make it a conversation. I took that information as I needed to have more direct quoting throughout the paragraphs. It was not until I actually got my final paper back graded that I had realized what I was doing wrong. Written on the front page was an explanation of how I needed to make it a conversation. Instead of my professor telling me to look at the examples she handed out, this time she had actually explained

it. I needed to make it seem like my sources were talking to each other rather than them just talking to me. I understand exactly how I should have fixed it all these times of revision; I just wish I could have known that information sooner. With that final comment given to me in mind, I am able to reflect back on how I have grown as a writer and reader this semester after writing this essay. I believe I acquire a lot more diligence in my schoolwork. If I can put my mind to something, no matter how challenging, I am able to conquer. I have learned that I need detailed feedback from my teachers in order to make my papers perfect, otherwise I will never know if I am going off track like I had so many times before. Although my writing has improved, I see the highest level of improvement in my reading. I have had to read and fully understand Jack Mezirows transformative learning theory piece in our textbook more than once this semester. His piece may possibly be the hardest thing I have had to understand; it is a very difficult text. I believe reading this text helped me with learning the necessary techniques to be able to learn others difficult pieces. Overall, like I have stated before, this essay has been the most challenging assignment I have been given yet as a student. I am thankful because I now know my biggest strengths, as well as weaknesses. I enjoy learning, and this essay taught me a lot.