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Danielle Zachary

ENC 1102

April 21, 2019

Self-Assessment

Going into ENC 1102, I was hesitant about starting a whole new writing class after I had

just finished ENC 1101 the past semester. I was worried that I would have trouble with the class

because I would be starting with a new teacher with new teaching settings. Now that I am

finished with my 1102 class, I realize that I had a helpful teacher that understood what they

were teaching and that I had nothing to worry about.

I also give credit for the class for helping me to understand what it means to truly be a

writer. I never really cared about writing and only wrote because it was necessary. After this

class, I realized just how important writing is. I now write for the future and sometimes I even

write for enjoyment. The course content was interesting to learn so I grasped it easily.

Going into Spring semester, I never really understood what rhetoric was. I knew it

related to writing and its process, but I never fully grasped what it meant. Because of this 1102

class, I can now say I understand what it means. Rhetoric is a persuasive way of writing and

learning that deals with language and diction, but rhetoric is so much more than its definition.

I also realized the difference between APA and MLA. I never knew there was a big

distinction between the different styles of writing. APA, also known as American Psychological

Association, is a style of writing that is used for research papers and high education essays. This

style uses passive tense in hopes that the person reading it wants to replicate the work or use it

for comparison. MLA, also known as Modern Language Association, is a style of writing that is
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used in college-level writing that is used in modern writings. Going into the 1102 class, I was

confused about the style of writing that would benefits my major the most, and thanks to this

class I found out that APA works better for psychology majors.

My ENC 1101 class taught me many things, but I learned different things in 1102. They

were both taught at different speeds and since 1101 was a pre-requisite for 1102, I used some

of the things from 1101 in 1102. In 1101, I was introduced to rhetoric but briefly. My teacher

was helpful but didn’t really teach what I needed to know for 1102. That was why I was glad

that my 1102 teacher was helpful in that they explained the main points of the class and fully

talked about the processes behind writing for future classes.

All throughout the course of out ENC 1102 class, I was tasked with reading from Writing

About Writing: A College Reader. This book contained multiple passages from various authors

that wrote about rhetoric and the processes behind it. They gave advice and ideas on how to

become a better writer. They talked about everything from discourse to persuasion. After

reading the book, I was then able to better understand what rhetoric really meant to a writer.

The class was given the task of writing multiple essays throughout the course and by

using the lessons we learned from reading the complex texts from the book, we were able to

write better and use rhetoric to our advantage. Our final assignment was to write a research

essay on a topic of our choice that deals with rhetoric through language. I decided to talk about

insanity and how certain individuals a treated during the process. Because of learning about

rhetoric through the texts written in Writing About Writing, I was able to rhetorically articulate

and use their writings to aptly write about my topic.

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As I write this self-assessment with only a week to go before Spring semester is over, I

realize that I was happy that I stayed in this class with my ENC 1102 teacher. I am glad I was

able to learn about rhetoric the way my teacher taught it. I can now apply it to my future

classes and also to my psychology major. I will have to do many more research essays in my

future and I am grateful to this class for helping me with learning about the process of writing

one. I never knew how to write a research essay effectively and now, because of this class, I

can.