Alicia Golden
Foundation of College Writing
Reflective essay
May 6th, 2013
The Structure of the Five Goals
Foundations of College Writing, is a writing course that I’m taking as a freshman! This
course is a course that most people I know have had the most problems with, so going into this
class I was very skeptical. I was scared to be entering a writing course because my writing skills
are very poor. Although I’ve had prior writing experience and I’ve done very well on past papers
in high school and in my developmental college Writing 2 course, I knew this was nothing
compared to either of them. Before even starting this class I was already dreading it. After
writing my first official College Writing paper and I receive a B+ on it I realized it wasn’t the
quality of my work, it was me who didn’t believe that the quality of my work was good enough,
we caused me to only produce B+ material work. What I learned from this class is that effort,
quality, and confidence in your work are what make a good paper, and of course all that
grammar stuff. In addition to learning that, I started to see what my other weaknesses were, just
like everyone else I struggle with grammar, I’m slowly improving. As a freshman I know I still
have a lot of room to improve with my writing. There no such thing as a perfect paper, but I will
strive to get a close as possible!
Goal 1: Compose for particular audiences and purposes.
In almost every single paper you will write it has to have an audience and of course a
purpose for why your writing. In my foundations of writing class we had to do three different
style of writing over the course of the semester. The first being a sourced memoir, the second, a
profile and the third and final paper was a proposal. The proposal was the icing on the cake, to
see if as a writer I could connect with my audience. Writing my proposal, as the words flowed
through my head and new thought and new ideas aroused in my head I felt as though I was
standing right in front of the Supreme Court judge and the federal law and Legislative branch. I
wrote my proposal on Legalization of Gay Marriages, although I felt like I was talking to the
“man in charge”, writing my proposal connected to more than just those few people. I connected
with gays all over the world, family members of those fighting for theirs right to same sex
unions, and most importantly myself. I wanted my audience to feel what I was writing so by
saying “Imagine if it was you or a loved you or just someone you knew fighting for this right,
think to yourself and ask would you help out? Or would you want to be helped out?” gave them
to sit back and connect with what I was saying. Also I used “Love” something that my older
audience could connect with.
Connection between the audience and the writer is what makes it worth reading. The
connection from the writer to the reader is more often than not the purpose. My purpose for
writing my proposal on the Legalization of Gay Marriages was to show the equality in love. By
showing the equality with love, was to show my readers that if there can be equality within love
what is the reasoning for having restrictions on where I can express my love or how I can express
my love. I also wanted to show that discrimination is wrong, if we were all created equal what is
the reason for another to discrimination. I wanted to get people more involved, give them more
knowledge and more courage to get up, get out, and most importantly vote to make a change!
Goal 2: Compose using language and conventions appropriate to genres.
In your writing you always have to make sure everything your saying is clear and precise
to your audience. You always want to make sure you use correct grammar and terminology.
Throughout the semester in each paper or presentation we’ve done we had to use different types
of terminology to get across to the reader. In our first paper, the memoir it was much more
personal, I used words such “I and me”. This paper was very much more personalized than the
others, including more personal details. In the second paper, the profile where I had to be more
professional, I had to take someone else’s language and incorporate it into my paper in ways that
my audience could understand. Although I was using direct quotes from my interviewee things
like “(Cobol) and (Mapper)”, to computer terms that my reader wasn’t going to understand, so I
had to break terms like that down. In the third and final paper I felt as though I was using a
combination of both skills that I learned from the previous two papers. Presenting is a lot more
difficult than just writing or typing words. During our discussion leader groups we have to
present to the glass, we had to remember to speak loudly a clearly. I also had to remember to
used terminology that my peers knew from prior knowledge.
Goal 3: Read, select and use evidence critically to formulate and support arguments.
In any formal paper evidence always helps to prove your point and make what you’re
saying more credible. For the memoir, we used our experiences, quotes and paraphrases from
articles that were given us by our professor. Then for our profiles, we used interviews and
observations. For the proposal, we heavily used facts, statistics, and quotes and paraphrases from
of course credible authorities. In my proposal I had to do the most research, although I only used
one main source through my paper, it was credible source. Instead of using 3-4 pieces of
evidence I used on that had a lot of information a history to support my problem. Evidence is a
very important part of writing an essay and is very necessary to have, so that you can make sure
the claims your making can be backed up and supported.
Goal 4: Interpret and compose in a variety of media and print/non-print genres.
Media played a huge part in our assignments this semester. It was not only encouraged by
our professor but it was a requirement. Visual aids were stressed a lot, as a good thing to enhance
the meaning of our papers. We could use all types of media in our assignments. The types of
media that was used were things such as pictures, videos, social networks, and even slideshows
and prezi’s. I choose to use pictures more than anything. In each of my essays and presentations
I used pictures that I found on the internet that helped me conveys my message I was trying to
get to my audience. In my last presentation and in my profile, I used pictures that were more
personal, pictures that were given to me by family members and close friends. The reason I
choose to use more personal pictures is because it gave me a better connection to my writing.
Goal 5: Describe and apply appropriate writing processes both individually and in
collaboration.
With every writing assignment there is always a process. One process that I and my
classmates followed this semester was the following: first brainstorming thoughts, ideas, and
topics, then researching what we have chosen before writing, next writing all of our thoughts on
paper, shortly after, more research is involved, next would first draft and Writing center/friends
and family readers Peer editing workshops, lastly Revise after editing. The last is one of the most
important parts to writing a paper. This last step is something that people, including myself
forget to do very often. Editing your paper is something that I found this semester to be very
helpful along with the peer reviews, writing center and peer workshops. This is a crucial step
within the writing process that people tend to skip over because they think their writing is
perfect. Throughtout the semester