Write An Essay To Demonstrate Your Understanding Of Class Ac ✓ Solved
Write an essay to demonstrate your understanding of class ac
Write an essay to demonstrate your understanding of class activities and assignments that helped you achieve Learning Outcomes. Identify and explain THREE class activities/assignments that helped you learn and improve writing and critical thinking competencies during the term; then complete the remaining two body paragraphs as instructed: Body paragraph #1: choose one class activity/assignment and discuss how it helped improve your reading, critical thinking, and writing competencies; include 5-7 compound, complex, or compound-complex sentences and a transition to paragraph #2. Body paragraph #2: choose a second activity/assignment and discuss its impact on your competencies; include 5-7 compound, complex, or compound-complex sentences and a transition to paragraph #3. Body paragraph #3: choose a third, different activity/assignment and discuss its impact; include 5-7 compound, complex, or compound-complex sentences and a transition to paragraph #4. Body paragraph #4: identify and discuss one challenging aspect of life/home/work during this term that affected your academic focus and explain how you overcame it to complete the course; include 5-7 compound, complex, or compound-complex sentences and a transition to paragraph #5. Body paragraph #5: assess whether you were a gambler or an investor in this course (e.g., waited until the last minute vs. worked ahead, used tutoring, revised drafts); include 5-7 compound, complex, or compound-complex sentences. Introduction: write an engaging introduction with an effective thesis statement and 5-7 compound, complex, or compound-complex sentences. Conclusion: restate the thesis in new words in 5-7 compound, complex, or compound-complex sentences; identify one activity you least expected to be helpful but now recognize as valuable for your college career; and name one class activity you would exclude from the course, explaining why. The essay must be MLA formatted, written in first person point of view, approximately 1000 words, and demonstrate understanding of essay structure and the sum of its parts.
Paper For Above Instructions
Introduction
I entered this course with mixed expectations, and yet three specific activities—discussion board analyses of short stories, the culminating essay assignment, and the iterative drafting/revision process with peer feedback—served as the central engines of my growth in reading, critical thinking, and writing. Although I had prior experience with college writing, I found that actively engaging in structured discussions and deliberate revision intensified my ability to analyze texts, organize arguments, and communicate clearly, which together supported the course learning outcomes (Brookfield, 2012). By reflecting on these activities and how I navigated a serious personal health challenge this term, I can clearly see how intentional practice and investment in learning produce measurable improvement, whereas last-minute strategies tend to produce uneven results (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). This essay uses first-person reflection to explain how these three activities strengthened my competencies, how I overcame an obstacle that threatened my progress, and whether I acted like a gambler or an investor in my academic choices.
Body Paragraph #1: Discussion Board Analyses
The discussion board assignments that required us to read short stories and respond to classmates pushed me to practice close reading and to articulate interpretive claims more precisely, and because I had to respond to peers I learned to consider alternative perspectives before I finalized my own analysis (King, 1993). At first I avoided discussion-heavy formats in other courses because I worried about the workload, yet the short, focused responses encouraged regular practice in summarizing evidence and making persuasive inferences, which improved both my critical thinking and my ability to craft topic sentences that guided paragraphs (Bean, 2011). Interacting with classmates exposed me to divergent readings and rhetorical strategies, which helped me refine my own claims and to anticipate counterarguments that strengthened the coherence of my essays (Johnson et al., 1998). These benefits were compounded by instructor prompts that modeled analytic questions, so my responses gradually moved from descriptive to interpretive and evaluative, which is a key transition in higher-order thinking (Bloom, 1956). The discussion work therefore laid an essential foundation for later assignments, and this preparation naturally led me to apply what I learned to the longer essay tasks that followed.
Body Paragraph #2: The Culminating Essay
The final essay required synthesis of multiple readings and careful organizational planning, and because it was scaffolded I was able to apply the analytic habits fostered in discussions to a sustained academic argument, which improved my thesis development and paragraph-level cohesion (Purdue OWL, n.d.). Writing the longer essay forced me to translate brief discussion insights into a coherent structure of claims, evidence, and analysis, and when I compared my drafts to sample essays and the course's key components I noticed measurable improvement in logic and citation of textual evidence (Bean, 2011). The iterative revision process for the essay—draft, feedback, revision—helped me practice metacognitive editing strategies and to prioritize macro-level concerns before polishing sentence-level mechanics (Nicol & Macfarlane‐Dick, 2006). In short, the culminating essay was an integrative task that demonstrated how repeated practice, structured models, and feedback combine to elevate writing quality and critical reasoning, and my success on this assignment reinforced the value of planning and revision habits for future academic work.
Body Paragraph #3: Drafting, Peer Feedback, and Tutoring
The requirement to produce a draft and to seek feedback, whether from peers or from tutoring services, taught me that good writing results from social and recursive processes rather than sudden inspiration, and because I used tutoring resources I learned concrete revision strategies that improved clarity and organization (Nicol & Macfarlane‐Dick, 2006; Purdue OWL, n.d.). Peer review sessions encouraged me to articulate revision goals and to accept criticism constructively, and over time I used peers' comments to identify recurring issues in my paragraphs—such as weak transitions or insufficient textual support—and then to address those issues in subsequent drafts (Johnson et al., 1998). The tutoring center helped with grammar and MLA formatting, which reduced lower-order errors and allowed my ideas to stand out more clearly, while instructor feedback reinforced higher-order concerns like argument structure and development (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). These combined supports illustrate how investment in the writing process—drafting, seeking feedback, and revising—produces stronger outcomes than working in isolation or waiting until the last minute to submit work.
Body Paragraph #4: Personal Challenge and Overcoming It
Midway through the term I contracted COVID-19 and experienced severe symptoms—high fever, persistent cough, intense headaches, and weeks of fatigue—that significantly hindered my concentration and productivity, and for several weeks I fell behind on readings and drafts because simply completing basic tasks felt overwhelming. To overcome this, I communicated promptly with my instructor, requested reasonable accommodations, and shifted to smaller, manageable goals such as short reading sessions and targeted paragraph drafts that allowed me to maintain momentum without exhausting myself (Brookfield, 2012). I also used recorded lectures and extended deadlines when necessary, and I prioritized feedback sessions once my energy returned so that I could revise efficiently instead of reworking material from scratch (Nicol & Macfarlane‐Dick, 2006). This combination of communication, time-slicing, and focused revision enabled me to complete the course successfully, and the experience taught me the importance of realistic pacing and seeking help early when health or life challenges threaten academic progress.
Body Paragraph #5: Gambler or Investor?
Reflecting honestly, I consider myself an investor in this course because I consistently worked to apply feedback, compared my writing to the samples provided early in the term, used tutoring resources, and completed drafts ahead of deadlines whenever my health allowed, and these actions produced stronger drafts and better grades than I would have earned by procrastinating. I did, at times, face pressure to delay work because illness sapped my energy, but I avoided habitual last-minute submission by breaking assignments into stages and by setting internal deadlines that mirrored the course calendar (Purdue OWL, n.d.). Investing time in revision, peer review, and instructor consultations paid dividends in clarity and argument development, and although I occasionally felt anxious I never relied on risky, last-minute gambles to carry my grade. Overall, the investor approach—planning, practicing, and seeking resources—proved both more sustainable and more effective for deep learning and for producing academic writing I can be proud of (Chickering & Gamson, 1987; Bean, 2011).
Conclusion
In summary, the discussion board analyses, the culminating essay, and the drafting-plus-feedback cycle were the three activities that most improved my reading, critical thinking, and writing competencies by promoting frequent practice, synthesis, and deliberate revision. Although I originally resisted discussion-heavy formats, I now recognize the discussion work as unexpectedly valuable because it trained me to notice nuance in short texts and to craft concise, evidence-based claims that scaled up to longer essays, and this shift will benefit my future studies in nursing and beyond (King, 1993). If I had to remove one activity from the course, I would exclude the partner essay assignment as implemented, because uneven partner commitment sometimes shifted workload unfairly and limited individual practice; instead, I would recommend structured peer-review sessions that ensure each student completes the full range of tasks independently while still receiving collaborative feedback (Johnson et al., 1998). Ultimately, investing in the writing process rather than gambling with deadlines led to the strongest outcomes, and the skills I practiced here will remain useful as I continue into the next phase of my academic and professional journey.
References
- Bean, J. C. (2011). Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
- Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. Longmans, Green.
- Brookfield, S. D. (2012). Teaching for Critical Thinking: Tools and Techniques to Help Students Question Their Assumptions. Jossey-Bass.
- Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin, 39(7), 3–7.
- Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1998). Cooperative learning returns to college: What evidence is there that it works? Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 30(4), 26–35.
- King, A. (1993). From sage on the stage to guide on the side. College Teaching, 41(1), 30–35.
- Nicol, D. J., & Macfarlane‐Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(4), 199–218.
- Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). (n.d.). The Writing Process. https://owl.purdue.edu/
- Race, P. (2001). The Lecturer's Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Assessment, Learning and Teaching. RoutledgeFalmer.
- American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). American Psychological Association.