Ayra Nunez

English 5M
Professor Doutherd
December 4, 2017
Achievement Summary
Looking back at my very first ever submitted reading response, it was evident that my
writing did not have a successful outcome as I expected. I do not necessarily remember what the
fundamental instructions and requirements the professor had for the first reading response, but I
do recall a moment where the professor had informed us to focus on answering the prompt, as
well as including the particular knowledge we had acquired from the article. Basically, the first
RR was an experiment in which students were asked to display their disciplinary knowledge
writing skills in order for the professor to have an idea of what her group of students had
obtained throughout their years in high school.
The issue I had with my first reading response was not including MLA format citations,
and the lack of encompassing unknown vocabulary at the end of my paper. The comments I had
received from my professor informed me that I missed the idea of making personal connections
with the text. Although, I did include a well thought-out summary which was a visibility that I
had a comprehension underlining the article's content. As mentioned previously before, the
structure of my writing, which was in the format of an essay, did not seem appropriate for this
task of writing.
As for my reading response number two, Professor Doutherd had gone over in class what
exactly we need to implement for the remainder of our future reading responses. She had
provided a template which consisted of: MLA format citations for the articles publication,
specific color codings, summary, claim, data, vocabulary, and a connection. After following the
template my ideas were somewhat organized than the first reading response. However, I did not
do so well in the performance of my second reading response because I demonstrated a ton of
weaknesses between my claims and failing to link relatable quotes which had no correlation with
one another causing my paper to sound choppy.
In spite of that, I admit that my ninth reading response was quite challenging for the fact
that I used, awkward language affecting my audience where they were are not able to
understand my ideas. The reason why I found it so challenging was primarily because the article
itself was very challenging to even formulate a claim because Dr. McCarthy presented data
longitudinal studies and of course I did not feel confident with the data she was presenting
because I had failed to understand what she was even attempting to demonstrate. I have
terminated that in order for the a student to address particular prompts they should feel confident
in what they have read and with that ability the rest just follows.
On top of that, I also had in the back of my mind the suggestions the professor had
recommended for to utilize for future papers, but it turns out that I was not successful in using
them in an effective manner. Thus, I felt a little discouraged when I attempted to just combine all
of the strengths I have developed from previous RRs affecting me to become a prosperous
writer.
Fortunately, for my tenth and final reading response I took the advice which led me to the
direction of being able redeem myself from RR nine. The irony behind this article was that
author Greene had also conducted a research evaluating how students collect their knowledge
and applying it to different subjects. Since I was already exposed to an article that had performed
studies I feel like it prepared me to understand Greenes article better. With the possession of
that strength I was able to make connections in agreeing with Greenes argument: the idea of
framing highlights the fact that other peoples texts can serve as tools for helping you say more
about your ideas (34). I was also given, from the previous response, feedback which made my
sections more clearer as well as producing a claim with data to wrap my whole argument
altogether.
Overall, I can genuinely see my growth as a reader, writer, and thinker. I went from
having little high school writing skills (which let me tell you was not very much) to being able to
learn from my writing mistakes later demonstrating a transformation of understanding the
academic text. Aside from that, I had also developed a strategy to help me comprehend more as a
reader where I would write down ideas I merely connected with and then wrote it down on
multicolor sticky notes. I am well aware that I still need to continue to practice with my choice of
diction, but during the duration of the ten logs my analyzation, criticism, and responses to the
texts has increased my writing skills for future english composition courses.