1202 Self-Assessment, Final Exam, and Final Exam Option Fall 2023
Parts of First-Year Writing Assessment
Section I: Take-home self-assessment (all students, submitted only to instructor) (50% of final, or 35% if your instructor chooses to include Section III)
Section II: In-class or take-home final exam on literary interpretation (50% of final, or 35% if your instructor chooses to include Section III)
Section III: (Optional) In-class or take-home exam about the literature you’ve read during the term. It may be an objective-type and/or short-answer type of test. Assigning this section is at your instructor’s discretion. (30% of final, if your instructor chooses this option)
Directions for Section I: Preparing and Submitting Self-Assessment
Purposes for self-assessment. This reflection will help you articulate your own learning and reading and writing and will be part of your ENGL1202 final exam grade. It will help your instructor understand and learn from your perspective on your experiences learning how to read and write in CORE English I and II and help the writing program assess its effectiveness. (Some of you may have taken only CORE English II.)
Preparing for the self-assessment
Your self-assessment assignment is to answer the following question in a coherent essay: How has your relationship with reading and writing developed during CORE English I and II? In drafting your answer consider all the material discussed with regard to writing and reading in both courses. You may draw upon the Outcomes Statements for First-Year Writing, a set of statements that express what we expect you to have accomplished by the end of your first-year writing experience. Please note the major topics in the Outcomes Statements: (1) Rhetorical Knowledge, (2) Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing, (3) Processes, and (4) Knowledge of Conventions. Also, you might find it useful to examine a sample student self-assessment. (What you choose to focus on in your essay may of course differ from this student’s focus.)
How to write and submit the self-assessment
When you read over your writings, take notes on places where you’ve learned something important to your development as a reader and writer as well as places that may still be a challenge to your ability to read and write, in either an academic or nonacademic setting. This preparatory work should help you answer the question most effectively.
The self-assessment should be a personal essay that focuses on a thesis about your growth as a writer in your English course(s), documenting your claims by referring to your essays and other writings. Since you will not be including previous drafts with your self-assessment, it will be especially important to cite specific instances from your drafts. It will be hard to write a substantive self-assessment in less than three pages. Your essay will be evaluated as an academic essay, that is, on your ability to draw from a complex set of evidence (your writings and writing experiences), your critical reflection on that evidence, the compelling nature of your thesis, and a coherent organization. It is not just a freewrite of your impressions of the writing you’ve done for your course(s). Since this is a take-home exam, you have time for multiple drafts to develop your ideas and edit for clarity and correctness. Follow your instructor’s instructions about how to submit this essay.
Note on using “I”: in a self-assessment, it is permissible and advisable to use “I” and other pronouns relating to yourself because you and your own writing are the main subjects of the essay. When instructors advise you not to use “I,” they typically mean using “I think” or “I feel” to express your views, language which is unnecessary in academic writing and which serves only to weaken, not strengthen, the point which follows it.
Directions for Section II: Writing and Submitting In-class or Take-Home Final Exam on Short Story
Read the short story given to you either at the beginning of the exam period or in advance. The story you’ll be reading has been chosen by your instructor. Write an essay in which you make an argument for your particular way of interpreting the story, considering (but not necessarily using) all the elements of fiction: plot, character, narrative point of view, setting/atmosphere, symbol and figurative language, irony/paradox, tone, and genre. It will be graded based upon whatever rubric or assessment guideline that your instructor has been using to evaluate literature-based arguments. You will be evaluated both on your reading and writing abilities. Remember to cite sources properly. Submit following your instructor’s directions.