Hello, My name is Sohyanni Luke and welcome to my English 21007 Writing for Engineers portfolio. I enrolled in this class in my freshman semester at The City College of New York. Before I took this class I thought of myself as an above average writer with a great deal of experience writing argumentative and informational texts. This experience ended up aiding me through my assignments in this class even though I was writing essays in foreign formats. Also, due to the fact that the majority of the assignments required me to explain information and be persuasive I was able to use my prior experience to my advantage. On the other hand, my lack of experience in writing formally became a slight setback on the first few assignments as well as my unfamiliarity with the concept of rhetorical situation. Ultimately, I learned these skills and concepts and how to apply them in my writing assignments for the class throughout the semester.
The first assignment I was given for this course was the Formal Letter of Introduction. The purpose of this assignment was for us students to introduce ourselves formally to our instructor, Ms. C. Rodwell through a letter. Through doing this I have learned how to formally introduce myself through the use of formal writing and learned how to properly structure a formal letter. One course learning outcome I was able to apply to this assignment was course learning outcome number three, which entails negotiating your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding medium and rhetorical situation.
The next assignment to come was the memo assignment. The purpose of this assignment is to create a formal memo for the president of City College of New York addressing a major campus wide problem. After successfully completing this assignment I was able to learn how to properly write and structure a formal memo and discuss a topic of interest using the rhetorical situation which is a new concept of structure that we discussed in class. This was also the assignment where I learned that in order to succeed in this class I have to be descriptive and make sure my writing does not make the reader ask questions. A course learning outcome that I was able to apply to this assignment was course learning outcome number three, which entails negotiating your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding medium and rhetorical situation.
The following assignment was the lab report analysis assignment. The purpose of this assignment is assignment was to find three real lab reports to analyze and critique. After successfully completing this assignment I was able to learn how to write an analytical essay. Also by using course learning outcome number six, which is to formulate and articulate a stance through and in your writing, I was able to learn how to interpret multiple pieces of data to prove a thesis statement.
The fourth assignment in this class was the technical description. The purpose of this assignment was to write an in-depth technical description on a product. Through completing this assignment I was able to give a detailed description of a product and each of its parts and how to subtly promote a product. One course learning outcome I was able to utilize when writing this assignment was course learning outcome number six, which again is to formulate and articulate a stance through and in your writing.
The assignment for this class was the group innovation project. The purpose of this assignment was to work with a group of my peers to create an innovation idea to sell to the instructor and the class. Through doing this project I learned how to work with a group and learned that differing views is a common occurance in a group and building on each others ideas instead of cutting them down is the best way to make progress. For example, one of my groups first innovation ideas was geological toilets, however, it could not be implemented in the way that we wished to do so. Instead of chopping that idea down though we explored similar ideas to that and found a way to innovate methane production plants which is a similar process to geological toilets. The course learning outcome that I used throughout this project was the first one which was to acknowledge others’ range of linguistic differences as resources.
One major part of the class assignments was the self reflection essays that were mandatory after every assignment. These essays helped us gauge where we were when we first wrote the assignment and how we grew as a writer during the writing process and after it.
Overall I enjoyed my time in English 21007, I learned new things about writing and I got a real taste of what writing is like for engineers in the field. After this course I feel like I will be more anal towards my own writing, that way I will be able to satisfy my audience or reader and not leave them asking questions and wondering.
