For your final essay assignment in English 111, you will compose a reflection that documents your work over the course of the semester focusing on what you consider your most significant work and the feature or features of the course that have contributed most to your development as a writer, a reader, and/or a critical thinker. Features to consider include the following:

• Reading Maus
• Keeping a journal
• Writing for an online audience beyond the classroom/creating and maintaining a WordPress blog
• Planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative
• Planning, drafting, and revising your analysis of Maus
• Consulting A Writer’s Reference/Revising with A Writer’s Reference
• Writing longhand
• Limiting screen time

You are welcome to focus on more than one feature but no more than three.

Include in your reflective essay the following elements:

• An opening paragraph that introduces your focus and presents your thesis
• Body paragraphs that offer concrete details from your work to support your thesis
• Quotations or paraphrases from two relevant and credible sources, introduced with signal phrases and followed by parenthetical citations where needed. One of the two sources may be one of your pieces of writing. Recommended sources include Maus, A Writer’s Reference, and the articles linked to your class notes.
• A conclusion that reiterates the thesis without restating it verbatim

If you quote or paraphrase your literacy narrative or your analysis of Maus, cite it as you would any other blog post. See the entries for my blog posts in the sample works cited list below.

Sample Reflective Essay

“Finding a Way Forward,” the reflective essay that I wrote as a model for my students last semester, is posted below and in Moodle.

Sample Works Cited*

Hacker, Diana, and Nancy Somers. “How to Write a Literacy Narrative.” A Writer’s Reference, GTCC 9th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2018. pp. 34-35.

—. “How to Write an Analytical Essay.” A Writer’s Reference, GTCC 9th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2018. pp. 69-70.

Harvard Health Publishing. “Blue Light Has a Dark Side,” May 2012, https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side.

James, Karin. “What are the Effects of Handwriting on Cognitive Development.” The Cognition and Action Neuroimaging Library, University of Indiana, 2016, https://canlab.sitehost.iu.edu/handwriting.html.

Klass, Perri. “Why Handwriting Is Still Essential in the Keyboard Age.” The New York Times, 20 June 2016, https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/why-handwriting-is-still-essential-in-the-keyboard-age/?smid=pl-share.

Lucas, Jane. “ENG 111: A Clara-fying Lesson.” Jane Lucas, 23 Feb. 2021, https://janelucas.com/2021/02/23/a-clara-fying-lesson/.

—. “ENG 111: The Strange Fruit of Sosnowiec.” Jane Lucas, 2 Apr. 2021, https://janelucas.com/2021/04/02/the-strange-fruit-of-sosnowiec/.

Myer, Robinson. “To Remember a Lecture Better, Take Notes by Hand.” The Atlantic, 1 May 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/to-remember-a-lecture-better-take-notes-by-hand/361478/.

Richtel, Matt. “Blogs vs. Term Papers,” The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2012, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/muscling-in-on-the-term-paper-tradition.html.

Spiegelman, Art. Maus I. Pantheon, 1986.

Twenge, Jean M. “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” The Atlantic, Sept. 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/.

Wolf, Maryanne. “Skim Reading is the New Normal.” The Guardian, 25 Aug. 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/skim-reading-new-normal-maryanne-wolf.

*In the Microsoft Word file or PDF that you post to Moodle, the second line and any subsequent lines of your work cited entries should be indented five spaces or one-half inch.