COMM 337: Last class, final exam hints

Since there is a free food day scheduled Monday at Mueller Hall, I'm proposing to let today be our last class session and to hand out final exam papers in dead-tree format at the free food day.

One of our own will be recognized at the event. If you've been checking your SCI email account, no doubt you saw this announcement from Arts and Letters Division Chair Amy Lakin:

On Monday November 24, the Division of Arts and Letters will recognize three students for Outstanding Composition during the 2007-2008 school year. Michael Reese, Brenda Stretch, and Nikkie Prosperini will be honored at 12:15 in Mueller Hall during Free Food Day. Please congratulate these students on their excellent work.

And if you haven't been checking your SCI account, now you've seen it too. Congratulations, Nikkie!

Your final exam in COMM 337 will consist of one essay. It'll be a self-reflective essay. I haven't made it out yet, but it'll be a more elaborate version of "Question 2a" on every exam you've written for me. Here, as an example, is the one from COMM 387, the Journ./Lit. course I taught last spring:

2a. Self-reflective essay (25 points). What have you learned in Communications 387 that surprised you the most? How, specifically, did it surprise you? What was your overall impression of the journalistic writing -- as writing -- before you took the course? How has that changed as a result of your reading, class discussion and research for the course? Consider it in the context of what you knew at the beginning of the semester and what you know now. In grading this essay, I will evaluate the relevance of your discussion to the main goals and objectives of the course; the detail you cite to support or illustrate your points; and the connections you make. Be specific.

Since COMM 337 is a writing course (which academics classify as a "skills" course), this squib from an old handout linked to my faculty page may be helpful:

Writing (skills) courses. A skills course is one where you learn, or practice, a skill like writing. If you're taking freshman English or journalism, you'll be thinking -- reflecting -- about how you've grown as a writer. What was your writing like when you began the course? Is it better now? Are you more confident? Do you know where to look stuff up? Are you mastering the inverted pyramid format? (Basic newswriting is both a skills course and a content course, by the way, so if you're taking COM 209 look at my tips for content courses as well.) Consult the goals and objectives in our syllabus, or the "competencies" in the Illinois Articulation Iniative guidelines for the course. They'll suggest what you're supposed to learn. Be specific. What specific strategies, techniques or skills have you learned? It never hurts to be specific.

Here are a couple of links to other discussions of how to write a self-reflective essay about your writing. I will attempt to translate academese terms into English:

• A "writing prompt" or assignment sheet in an English comp class at the University of Colorado Denver. It gives you some good questions to ask yourself to get started.
  
• A set of "Sample Self-Evaluation Prompts" from colleges in the University of Washington system.

In the finals you write for me, I'll be asking you to reflect on your growth as a professional writer. You will, of course, want to impress me with your familiarity with Donald Murray's "Writing to Deadline" (the little green book that never went away). But you already knew that. Right?