Today in class you will plan and compose a midterm reflective essay that documents your work in the first half of the semester, focusing on two or three assignments or aspects of the course that have contributed to your development as a writer and a student. Since you have already written a reflection devoted solely to your literacy narrative, your midterm reflection should focus primarily on other assignments or aspects of the course, including the following:
- Keeping a journal
- Studying one of the readings examined class, including “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “The Day Language Came into My Life,” the excerpt from Chapter One of To Kill a Mockingbird, the excerpt from “The Falling Man,” or “Back Story.”
- Reading and editing samples of student writing
- Creating and maintaining a WordPress blog and writing for an online audience beyond the classroom.
- Collaborating with your classmates on in-class writing assignments
- Playing Scrabble and collaborating with your teammates on Wordplay Day
- Writing longhand
- Limiting screen time
- Beginning your analysis
Include in your refelective essay the following elements:
- A title that offers a window into your reflection
- An opening paragraph that introduces your focus and presents your thesis
- Body paragraphs that offer concrete details from your work to support your claims
- One relevant quotation from one of the essays, article excerpts, chapter excerpts, or chapters that you have read or from Writing Analytically
- A signal phrase and a parenthetical citation for the quotation
- A conclusion that revisits the thesis without restating it verbatim
- A work cited entry for the text that you quote
Sample MLA Works Cited Entries
Junod, Tom. “The Falling Man.” Esquire, vol. 140, no. 3, Sept. 2003, pp. 176+. Gale Academic OneFile Select, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A106423422/EAIM?u=hpu_main&sid=bookmark-EAIM&xid=ce48797f.
Keller, Helen. “The Day Language Came into My Life.” https://janelucas.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/a0461-3.thedaylanguagecameintomylife_keller.pdf
Lewis, Michael. “Back Story.” The Blind Side. 2006. Norton, 2009. pp.15-23.
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “‘Interesting,’ ‘Revealing,’ ‘Strange.’” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. p. 24.
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “On Keeping a Writer’s Notebook.” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 157-58.
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Seems to Be About X, But Could Also Be (Or is ‘Really’) About Y.’” Writing Analytically, 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2024. pp. 104-7.
Sedaris, David. “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Me Talk Pretty One Day. Little, Brown, 2000. 166-73.
Note that unlike the works cited entries above, the one on your midterm reflection will have a hanging indent, as will all of the works cited entries in the Microsoft Word files and PDFs that you post to Blackboard.
The complete midterm reflection assignment, along with the grade criteria, is included on the assignment handout that you will receive in class.
Next Up
At the beginning of class on Wednesday, we will review the sample student analysis and accompanying assignment that I distributed in class today. After that, I will return your handwritten analyses drafts with my notes, and you will have the remainder of the class period to begin revising on your laptops and tablets. The due date for posting your revised analysis to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog is Wednesday, October 15 (before class). The hard deadline is Friday, October 17 (before class).
Jane Lucas 