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LO1 – Read Texts Closely and Think Critically
I believe that the best way to show how I have grown in regards to this learning outcome is to give examples of my writing at the beginning of my college career and near the end, so that they may be compared. Here is a sample of one of my very first collegiate essays from “English Composition” (ENG110) that I took during my Freshman fall semester;
When comparing both Gee and Haas’s definitions and important aspects of a Discourse, more specifically a Scientific Discourse, there are very distinct similarities that can be found. These such parallels are the use of variations of three words; saying, doing, and being. Furthermore, Gee puts forth his “seven building tasks” used in reading and writing as the virtual end-all-be-all to the manifestation of a perfected Discourse. Among these seven concepts, only one mentions all three of the shared parts of a Discourse, and even goes further in its analysis; “What we say, do, and are in using language enacts practices. At the same time, what we say, do, and are would have no meaning unless these practices already existed…language and practices ‘boot strap’ each other into existence in a reciprocal process through time. We cannot have one without the other” (Gee 33). Practices or activities is clearly an important factor in developing a Discourse, and for that matter the utilization of an already established one. Therefore, while we need the activity to exist to create the very need for the Discourse, what we say, do and are (a Discourse) is used through and developed by a certain practice. One of these such practices is the teacher-student relationship that Eliza enjoys during her work in the biology lab under the guidance of a graduate student named Shelly. In Haas’ analysis of her experiment involving Eliza she notes that “Shelly became quite important to Eliza, making up a full 10% of the mentions of human agents in the interviews from Eliza’s senior year” (77). While not all of Eliza’s growth in her understanding of the scientific field can be attributed to her work with Shelly, it is apparent that this particular experience had quite an effect on her, and the activity of hands-on tasks and the presence of a mentor certainly helped develop her speech, methods, and mindset relating to her science academia.”
One can see that I was certainly able to ascertain both the literal and figurative meanings of the texts I read and put them to good use forming an argument. In this piece I compared the similarities between two sources and delved deeper into the real-world implications of the text to uncover the value of a “mentor” in developing a discourse. From reading through this essay with hindsight I am able to be proud of the work I wrote in my early college years, but I am also able to observe room for improvement. This is a passage from my Revision Project that I completed in “Fourth Year Thesis Project” (LIL420) that I took in my Junior spring semester:
With the downfalls sufficiently spelled out, we turn now to the supposed benefits that war can bring, including change and defense; those that would lead credence to the argument that violent conflict is sometimes necessary. Beginning with the first positive effect, change can be enacted both through war and after war. The German philosopher Karl Marx lays out how his desired revolution can take place in the Communist Manifesto;
“In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat”( ).
Marx realizes that violent conflict is the only manner in which this change can occur, leading to a more equal socialist society, and that the gains outweigh the losses. While this measurement is a subjective one, I offer a look into those aforementioned losses. Depicting the French Revolution, an example of Marx’s overthrow, Charles Dickens illuminates how the ordeal really unfolds in A Tale of Two Cities;
“So much more wicked and distracted had the Revolution grown in that December month, that the rivers of the South were encumbered with the bodies of the violently drowned by night, and prisoners were shot in lines and squares under the southern wintry sun” ( ).
While this form of violent conflict may be undertaken with good intentions, it is nonetheless still war, and the three consequences of war previously laid out apply, tipping the balance towards a negative overall result. Furthermore, I would be remiss to avoid mentioning how humanity has accomplished various objectives throughout history with war, even though we paid heavy prices for them. How did our country gain its independence from tyrannical rule? War. How did our country finally wipe slavery off the map? War. How did our world extinguish the evil of facism from the face of the planet? You guessed it, war. The other way in which change can result from violent conflict is after it ends and because of the opportunity that the peace created by war allows. American historian, Daniel Immerwahr, in his book How to Hide an Empire, gives us an example, explaining that in 1945 one in three people globally were colonized, and in 1960, because of the peace created by World War II, that number had been significantly reduced to one in fifty( ). While one would be hard pressed to argue against taking advantage of the calm after the storm, the costs carries over from the preceding conflict when determining the aggregate score, and because of the continuous characteristic of war, the interval of peace is just that, only lasting for a limited period before it is back to violence once again. Both change caused by war and allowed for afterwards certainly have their merits, and I do not here attempt to diminish the great strides we have made, but am merely suggesting that they do not justify the violence that accompanies them and that there are other ways in which these changes can be accomplished, or at least partly so. For the combination of these reasons I claim that change does not and should not necessitate war.”
While some of the tools I utilize are the same, and my writing voice is certainly still heard in this piece, I have undertaken and accomplished a much more difficult goal than the one I was pursuing my Freshman year. Here I manage to engage with the work of a scholar and give credence to his work, but also counter his ideas by highlighting an observation the past author may not have thought of. I make a point also to offer concessions when necessary, showing a growth in my stance as an academic myself. This is undoubtedly a much more sophisticated task that I might not have been able to effectively complete in my early collegiate career, but thanks to great professors, several classes and lots of practice, my skills in critical reading and thinking have expanded to a level that forms me into a more well-rounded student and potential employee.
LO2 – Demonstrate a Comprehensive Understanding of Literature in English
In regards to this learning outcome, there is one specific class that has allowed me the opportunity to explore the necessary fields and concepts of literature. The spring semester of my junior year I took “Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism” (ENG206). As the name implies, this class exposed me to the materials and ideas of literary history, theory and criticism by reading works from authors throughout space and time, from writings of a female African-American in pre-Civil War America to an elitist white man in early twentieth century Britain. We engaged in a specific focus on the historical and cultural context of a given piece, as exemplified by the following excerpt of my Midterm essay centered on this very topic;
I would like to start in the first half of the nineteenth century with two very different characters. One, a poor, neglected man dealing with alcoholism and depression, and the other, a wealthy born, rather narcissistic elite. The first, Edgar Allen Poe, in his essay “The Philosophy of Composition” writes about how he composes poetry similar to a “mathematical problem”, and how he deliberately wrote one of his most famous poems, “The Raven”, in the way that he did because “the death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetic topic in the world” (Poe). In his historical context, Poe was living in a young America, a mere few decades old, in which the country and its people were still looking for their identity. He too was searching for who he was, more specifically as an author, and the answer was simple enough; he was a person and a poet who needed money to survive. After all, in a still mostly agrarian society, before the age of industrialization, money could be hard to come by. His reason to write can be distilled down to a single word; necessity. Percy Bysshe Shelley had a very different experience in a very different environment, that being an England still basking in its glorious control over the world. Shelley was also born into a very wealthy life which left very little room for any type of necessity. Instead, in his own words, from “A Defence of Poetry”, he creates poetry in order to reach and elicit “the divine”, “eternal truth” and “pleasure” (Shelley). Shelley writes (because he can afford not to write out of necessity) in the name of curiosity, and more importantly, for the reason of expression. The expression of all these wonderful emotions, of the lavish lifestyle he had, of the powerful and magnificent country he hailed from, and all because, in essence, he could; because of a want. Transitioning into our modern society, both reasons to write, a need and a want, necessity and expression, still very much exist and are very much relevant. One can point to mandatory writing assignments in education or careers that involve different styles of writing or even blogs and social media as examples of this, but I believe that the biggest relevancy to these arguments, as it was back when they were conceived, is wealth. Poe wrote because he had to in order to survive because of his poverty, and Shelley wrote because he wanted to and he could because of his wealth. The necessity that poverty forces upon you and the freedom that wealth allows you both offer great, albeit very different, opportunities. The opportunity to rise above your status or the opportunity to not squander the gifts given to you, can both yield meaningful and respectable results, then, now and for the foreseeable future.”
You can observe that I was able to analyze the differing historical and cultural origins of each author with the aim of comparing their individual takes on literary criticism. The whole of the class was focused on this goal and by repeatedly moving through the process with varying authors I was able to grasp the importance of the context of a piece of literature and utilize said skill to improve my overall writing and ability to form a complete argument. As for relating literature to other fields, the very fact that my English academic pursuit is a minor, a supplement to my major field of Political Science, means that my other collegiate focuses often bleed into my English work and vice versa. This specific goal was second-nature to me, as I am always combining what I learn in various fields of study together in order to round out my individual thinking. A culmination of this interdisciplinary scope is my Revision Project, which was reworking a formerly Political Science paper into one rooted in the Humanities, using knowledge I have accumulated in these different disciplines in order to craft a complete argument.
LO3 – Communicate Effectively
Through the writing samples I have already provided I believe it is obvious that I am able to develop, support and articulate claims effectively and with the correct conventions of the English language. If more evidence is needed to support this claim, I submitted a paper for the Saint Francis College Alumni Council Essay Contest Scholarship and won third place, a tangible marker of how well I communicate my ideas. Through past and continued drafting, peer review and revision of papers in English and other fields, I have developed understanding and appreciation that writing is a recursive process. I could offer a side-by-side comparison of revised papers, but I believe it is more important to note that I have adopted the recursive process into my writing on all levels and in all settings. With that said, I do believe that the analysis and commentary on my past paper for my Revision Project exemplifies this recursive process in action. This exercise allowed me to understand where I was in my learning at that time and to apply the knowledge I have gained in order to analyze, critique, expand, and (most importantly for this purpose) edit and revise my ideas into a new paper. Here is the first page of that commentary;
You can find the full commentary in the links below or under my “Revision Process Work”. Furthermore, I do not plan on foregoing this knowledge, as its omission will certainly cause a drop in the quality of my writing, and while production can be crucial, the importance of taking the time to review and edit pieces of writing past simple grammar can not be overstated.
I will now address the topic of oral presentation of writing pieces and projects with and without the aid of technology. Throughout my collegiate career I have given presentations on projects in Political Science, Business, Economics and Biology, among other fields, of which I consistently received exemplary grades for effectively communicating the information. Here are a few of the presentations through the years;
From Biology (BIO104) – Freshman Spring semester:
From Macroeconomics (BUEC203) – Freshman Spring semester:
From Constitutional Law (PSC210) – Sophomore Spring semester:
From Legal Environment of Business (BUMG325) – Junior Fall semester:
In the future, between the end of this semester’s classes and my senior year at the University of New England, I will have ample opportunity to continue to demonstrate and improve my presentation abilities in the specific scope of English. Between presenting my Revision Project for “Fourth Year Thesis Project” (LIL420), readings of my stories from “Creative Writing: Short Stories (WRT212) and the entire class of “Effective Public Speaking” (SPC100) during next semester, by the time I graduate there is no doubt my communication skills will be ready for the professional environment.
LO4 – Conduct Research in Literary and Cultural Studies
Once again, through my previous examples you can observe how I have been taught – and have eventually been successful in my own writing – to contribute my thoughts and opinions to the works of scholars before me. Furthermore, for evidence of the achievement of this learning outcome I will show components of two writing pieces. The first comes from my midterm in ENG206 (of which I already showed other portions of), and is the bibliography of said essay, highlighting that I am capable of citing my work correctly.
Work Cited
Hurston, Zora Neale. “What White Publishers Won’t Print.” Within the Circle: an Anthology of African American Literary Criticism from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present, by Angelyn Mitchell, Duke University Press, 1996, pp. 117–121.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Philosophy of Composition by Edgar Allan Poe.” Poetry Foundation, 1846, www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69390/the-philosophy-of-composition.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “A Defence of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Poetry Foundation, 1840, www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69388/a-defence-of-poetry.
Woolf, Virginia. From A Room Of One’s Own [Shakespeare’s Sister]. 1929, http://l-adam-mekler.com/shakespeares-sister.pdf.
The second is the list of sources I utilized in my Revision Project for LIL420 along with the corresponding identification of their creator;
- 1984, George Orwell (author)
- American Diplomacy, George Kennan (American diplomat)
- Catch-22, Joseph Heller (author)
- The Lemon Tree, Sandy Tolan (author)
- The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (author)
- Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx (philosopher)
- A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (author)
- How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr (historian)
- On Liberty, John Stuart Mill (philosopher)
- “Supreme Emergencies Revisited”, Daniel Statman (philosopher)
- A Problem From Hell, Samantha Power (US ambassador to the UN)
- “History is a Weapon”, Eqbal Ahmad (anti-war author)
- “Thomas Schelling and Strategic Bargaining”, Richard Ned Lebow (political scientist)
- “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb”, Kenneth Waltz (political scientist)
As you can see, I was able to research, gather, read and utilize a multitude of sources from various fields of study in order to make my points. To be quite honest, research was not a large part of my English studies, as I was often given the necessary materials by professors that I then wrote essays with. However, in this capstone class I was able to research all of my own sources, and while difficulty arose now and then, I achieved the collection of the most effective authors and their most fitting words for my purpose. I will be undertaking an even large research related project with my Political Science Capstone, and this Revision Project served as an excellent precursor to this corner of academics.
Concluding Thoughts
I believe that my English minor has been very well constructed when it comes to accomplishing each of these individual learning outcomes. I have experienced various classes that have been specifically targeted towards the separate learning outcomes, but there is certainly many instances of overlap that helps to reinforce as well as offer their completion and usage in different contexts. Through the work I have done and the skills I have practiced, I will be able to enter further academics and the eventual job market as a well-rounded student of English, and more widely, the Humanities.
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Linked below are the various papers and presentations I discussed to be reviewed at you leisure:
*A copy of the Revision Project can be found in the corresponding tab under “LIL420”
