Dear Susan,

It’s been a long and productive semester. In your English class, you managed to complete 6 major writing assignments (7 after this one). In these 7 assignments, you were able to meet all 8 of the course learning outcomes:

•  acknowledge your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources, and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility 
• enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment 
• negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation 
• develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes 
• engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond to include public audiences 
• formulate and articulate a stance through and in your writing 
• practice using various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects 
• strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources)

The first assignment was the letter of introduction. In this assignment, you introduced yourself, talked a little about my goals for the future, defined what sustainability meant to me, and why I have an interest in my major, biology. With this assignment, I was able to negotiate my own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation. I decided to write in a narrative for the paper and I outlined my goals of the course.

The second assignment was the public service announcement project. This project was more collaborative and I got to work with three other classmates. The topic we chose was light pollution on birds. In this assignment, I was able to accomplish multiple of the course learning outcomes. One of the goals I achieved are developing and engaging in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes because I was able to work together with multiple people and we each contributed our own thoughts to make one assignment. We all had to work together with our unique thoughts and split the work to make our video. Additionally, this project had you acknowledge your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources, and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility. The final project had to be on a time limit so we had to decide the best ways to condense our words, but still have enough on the slides for it to be efficient. It was hard to put a little amount on the slides, but still get our message through. A third goal that was reached was to enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment. This project required a lot of revision. One of these was presenting to the whole class and getting feedback from a real audience. There were many drafts of this project and at the end, we reflected on what we thought went well on the project. The self-reflection of this project was our third major writing assignment. We went through many assignments to lead to the final project to help us brainstorm our topic and gather research and find an organization supporting our topic. Another goal was using the internet to source and locate readings for this project. The last goal that was reached in this PSA project was engaging in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond to include public audiences. It was easy to write an essay about our topic, but finding ways to make it reach the public audience (CCNY students) was a little harder. 

Our next assignment was the literature review to get us ready for the research paper. This was my first literature review and it was kind of hard. I struggled a lot, especially with looking for my sources. Since my topic was so specific, it was hard to find research supporting exactly what I needed. I actually changed my topic to the one I stuck to (the effects of creatine on human bodies). The first goal I reached in this assignment was formulating and articulating a stance through and in my writing. I had to explain why the topic I chose was important and a bigger issue than it may seem. I had to be persuasive in why further research was needed for my topic. I was also able to practice using various library resources, online databases, and mainly the city college online library. All the sources I had used were from the CCNY database making them more reliable. 

My research proposal was about my plan for what I wanted to do about the use of creatine on our bodies. There were a lot of sources to be used and to make the paper more unique and more for me, I had to practice the last course goal, to strengthen your source use practices. I had to paraphrase and cite evidence from my sources all throughout my paper. I also used hyperlinks and definitions to help my paper reach audiences that are not in the science major and to those who may not understand the vocabulary I was using.

Lastly, I’m am proud of all the work I’ve have done throughout this semester. Every paper and the countless hours spent was worth it. I am proud of all my workpieces and am sad that this semester will be my final English course at City College, but I know this will not be my last paper. I hope to use all the skills I’ve learned in this course, even things I’ve learned about myself, in my future endeavors. I would also like to thank my Professor, Professor Carpenter, for her hard work to help all of us achieve all these learning outcomes. On to the next! 

Best,

Susan Lin

Dear Dr. Carpenter,

My intended major is biology with the hopes of going to Medical School after undergrad. I am still open to most of the specialties in the medical field as a career, but my top option right now is to become an anesthesiologist. I’ve always been attracted to the STEM field more than humanities and liberal arts. Something about being able to find just 1 solution or answer to a question or topic just appeals to me. I’m not a fan of writing because there is too much freedom sometimes and I don’t think I am a good writer. I don’t hate writing, but if given the choice between STEM or writing, I would choose STEM in a heartbeat. I think this is due to my struggles to learn English growing up in a non-English speaking household. 

I’ve never really considered science writing as “writing”, but looking at it now, I have been doing so much writing without realizing it. I don’t consider science writing more difficult. It just contains vocabulary that we typically don’t see in our English or history papers. I also think when you enjoy doing something more, it becomes easier because it feels more like a pleasant task rather than an assignment you have no choice to do. In order to decipher science texts, I don’t think it specifically requires a higher level of education. I think it just requires a certain type of education. For example, people with a bachelor’s degree in English and then people with a bachelor’s degree in Science have an equal level of education in terms of education in general (4 years of undergrad). But each of these people will have knowledge in their selected field.

When the COVID vaccine came out, I was intrigued and watched videos on the process of creating vaccines. When talking to my mom, she asked how they were created and I wasn’t able to use words like “antigens” because she’s never taken a science course in the US so I had to use simpler words like “take COVID and make weak so our body can create natural protection” instead of “weaken the COVID virus to be injected into people so that our bodies can build immunity and a barrier to a stronger version of it”. If I had to speak in my community about science issues, I would speak in simpler terms like if I was talking to a young child. I would avoid complicated words like names and just describe what they do instead. Ex, mitochondria -> powerhouse of cells.

Something that I struggle with is knowing the balance between being formal vs more conversational in my writing/speech. In papers I would be using harder terms because the reader can easily google the definition, but in speeches I sometimes don’t take my audience into consideration and it can make the speeches boring because they may have zero clue what I’m talking about. My goal is just to be more conversational and write in a way I would pay attention to.

I think SAE actually makes science less accessible to the general public because there is a smaller percentage of people in the general public that actually speak the “standard” English compared to all the other versions of English due to the large amount of cultural mixes. 

Sustainability to me means being able to maintain something in the long run instead of something that is just easier access and cheaper. Sustainability would be the balance between long term wear, cost, and efficiency.