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Index
to Sample Student final exam answers 2016 |
LITR 4340
 American Immigrant Literature Model Assignments |
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(Instructor's note: This essay did only two of three required reviews but was worth reading for other reasons.)
Madison Coates
The
Highs are Higher
To begin, I would like to first reflect on my own past web highlights in
my past essays for this class. Rereading what I have written for essay one and
two I completely understand how boring and pretty systematic the web highlight
reviews I have outlined and that it does not represent an essay. Going through
the process of reading many more highlights and reading other model assignments
I think I have a better understand of how to write this portion of the essay as
well as the other parts of my essay.
In Austin Greens’ essay “Culture Clash” and Jennifer Robles’ “Peeling
Back the Layers” I realized that I can put more of my voice into my work. Green
writes his essay with constant self-reflection while he used strong quotations
and examples that move the essay along smoothly. Robles also showed how she has
grown in her understanding of the course content through her review of web
highlights. One of the most interesting things I found was that neither of them
ever sounded arrogant in their writing, but instead stayed humble and honest.
Usually when I go through model assignments to write about I skim through
the first paragraph and if it catches my attention then I keep reading more
thoroughly. In Green’s essay comparing the immigrant and minority narrative I
was immediately hooked and he kept my attention throughout the entire essay. He
weaved his quotations so well and used so many examples with excellent
explanation. The most striking part of the essay was that Green was also able to
exert his voice in an even and unique way without deterring from the main topic.
Overall, I really hope I can develop my essay the way Green seems to have
flawlessly done so.
While Green kept my attention with his voice, Robles interested me in the
way she focused on learning through past classes with her web highlight review.
She wanted to gain more insight into how past students had interpreted our class
readings and see if she could apply that to her essay writing. She weaved
citations and reflection easily which made me completely believe that she would
continue to grow in her writing abilities. I don’t doubt from what I have seen
that she definitely will. I hope to also practice more reviewing practices like
Robles as she has looked at unique interpretations with critical eyes.
One thing that Green ended with in his essay was “the highs are higher
and the lows are lower”. In this case, I hope I can take the high parts of both
Green and Robles essays and try to hone it into my own writing. The flip side to
that is that I plan to not go lower with my already lows and instead keep
developing as both of these writers have. They have definitely broadened my view
on how I need to be writing my essays in current and future classes.
