My name is Jake Paucar, in this self- assessment for my FIQWS class course I will show how overtime it has helped me to achieve my goals I set. During taking this course I always learned many new things about jewish culture with the stories they have assigned me as well when writing about it either a short response or essay. When I started writing my first essay which was an Argumentative Essay I learned many new things because it was a new piece of essay I had to write about, same with the other two which are Argumentative Synthesis Essay and Critical Analysis Research Essay. There were many different ways of writing each essay and the drafting to which I had to revise to see if everything had aligned together. It’s the same with the readings we have read of the writer trying to prove his point by getting the reader’s attention.
In my first essay which was talking about “The Paper Menagerie” in which the character Jack had no sense of what he had done which caused him later on in the story, making him feel empty and lonely at the end. The thesis was really a strong point of mine because I didn’t place it too well in the beginning making it difficult for the readers aka teachers to understand what was the problem/ argument about. It did have an argument but not a strong one to say yes this was what they were arguing about. It did make the reader engaged with the story because of how sad it had to end which was my point in my first essay. But while in the other two essays we had to write, it was during class which we have no electronics and little to no evidence to provide in my draft.
While it was something different compared to the first one it helped us to reach our minds deep thinking of the story to have a connection in it for there could be arguments. It helped me understand that when writing an essay you need to put your full focus to really understand and reading it out loud can change the whole perspective of the essay because there are readers reading about your essay. You want your point to get across when starting the 1st paragraph and by writing a thesis statement you can see the argument which I was providing. It made it easier for me because I could choose any of the books we have read in class to use in my essay. Which is good for me because there were books more interesting compared to the others, which then comes to compare the similarities and differences between both of the stories. It helped me memorize the stories more in a depose meaning because I had to make a connection with the two stories to make an argument too, helped me write notes down for a better understanding.
Going through all the essays I mainly revised the last two of my essays because of the draft we did in class. It had it easier for me because there was some grammar I had wrong so I had to go back and fix it. Same with the thesis statement it didn’t have a strong argument to make the reader understand what the two stories argue about making not so good for me. But when revising the essay it has helped me to develop a better understanding of what a thesis statement is and how to write it to the reader’s eye. Like in the final essay I had to fix my thesis statement because it really didn’t show the argument I was going for so I had to rewrite it. I had to think why in the stories “The Lady of the Lake” and “The Magic Barrel” have a connection and differences, which it led me to make my thesis statement “The ending upsetting readers because it didn’t end the way they wanted to end but the way the writer had it planned to make it to end” making the readers upset and wanting more. I compare the similarities with their love life and how both stories end surprising us and the differences which were how they lost their love life and how it had to end. It always helped me to reread the stories for a better understanding because we couldn’t use our devices while writing the draft.
Overall it was a new learning style for me. I haven’t really understood what a thesis statement was for, why we had to revise and the point of rereading a story. It had me thinking of how the essay will interact with the audience and how they will see my argument if it’s strong or not. I had to revise it and edit it to make it better. Reading out loud can help me understand if it sounds good or bad. Making my essays better next time when writing an essay about a subject.
