When I first was assigned this essay it
was no surprise that I stared at the assignment paper and felt lost. This was
another college paper that required me to write over 5 pages, something I
dreaded doing each time. I think the best thing I did for myself was that when
the assignment was first posted, not just explained in class, I decided to read
it. I spent about 20 minutes making sure I understood what was being asked. I
read through all the different options (education, hope, social change) and
thought about which topic would be easier for me to write about. Then, since
there were different questions within each topic, I decided to compare some of
the things I had written in class about sources we had read to the questions
under the topic. This helped me feel calmer about the assignment because the
previously written paragraphs from class provided almost an outline for what I
was going to write.
Throughout
this assignment, I learned that if I argue my essay through one or two main
points, I would feel like I had a better sense of direction. This can be seen
in my essay when I continuously used slavery and communism in all 3 parts of my
essay. This allowed me to have a clear focus on my essay and not go off on a
tangent.
I
also learned about writing introductions and conclusions. I had always believed
that an intro started very general and then the last sentence was a concise
clear thesis. However, a thesis can be spread out throughout the entire
introduction. In my essay, I wrote about the process from oppression to social
change and education’s influence in social change from the beginning to the end
of my intro. In other words, my whole introductory paragraph explained my
thesis. My understanding of writing conclusions was also changed. I was always
told that you couldn’t bring in new information to a conclusion. However, based
on how I was guided to re-write my conclusion it seems that if new information
further defines the argument, than it is acceptable. In my essay, I wrote about
basic versus critical education o further define the education I referred to in
the rest of my essay. The idea of basic and critical education is somewhat new
in context but it does not bring up another argument that strays from the other
two arguments (slavery and communism) that are already in my essay.
No comments:
Post a Comment