Through reading this self-assessment, my hope is for the reader to gain an understanding of the works written for this class, and how in writing them I have shown areas I have improved in as well as areas where I still need to improve in. Throughout the semester of FIQWIS Composition, I have written a: Literacy narrative, exploratory essay and Critical analysis paper. In these papers I was able to showcase different aspects of writing as one required reflective and story telling skills, another required research and observational style writing and the other required critical thinking and argumentative writing. When writing these different pieces, I noticed trends in structure and grammar where I have gotten stronger in and areas were I could still improve for the years to come. Throughout this self-assessment I provide general descriptions along with excerpts from the pieces I wrote and my takeaways from each piece.

The first piece I wrote was a literary analysis used to reflect on a moment that impacted my literary development. The purpose in writing my literary analysis “Hand To God” was to reflect on a moment in my childhood that heavily impacted my perspective on the fundamentals of writing and the direction of my literacy development. In this piece, I chose to write about when I was in elementary school and was given a creative writing assignment for the first time. The piece is narrated through the first person perspective of that time, starting from when I originally thought writing was only used to record and provide information and history. But as I go through a lot of internal dialogue and deep thinking about what I’m going to write, I learn the limitations are much smaller, showing where I make a personal literary breakthroughs, which I apply beyond the classroom environment.

“I couldn’t speak for the rest of the class, but for me, her speech was beyond over whelming. No one has ever asked me to recall a memory of mine. I have none! I have barely been around for a decade. What memory could I have that would be remotely enlightening to anyone above my age. Most of the things I’ve done are pretty substandard and not worth writing about. Who’s going to take me seriously? I took this way of thinking and made it my mission to write something unique about me. Write about something that no one else can come up with because it only belongs to me. So then what is it? Again, I am only 10. I have not experienced anything “outstanding” other than walking home to school by myself (keep in mind I live around the corner.)”

I believe an area of this piece that was really strong was my ability to engage the reader. Engaging an audience when given an opportunity to be creative with writing is something I always felt confident in because I understand my voice very well when telling stories and felt comfortable translating it onto paper. My use of internal dialogue throughout the story engaged the audience by contextualizing the problem I was dealing with for the reader. When I asked myself questions, I felt it added a sense of drama that helped the reader fully sympathize and understand the internal struggle I was trying to convey; some readers might also find relatable. In addition, the use of internal dialogue allowed me to convey small bits of humor to lighten up the mood and add life to the piece, making the internal conflict not seem too dark and remind the audience it was a productive and constructive time in my life.

Another aspect of this piece I felt was strong was the pace and tone I used to convey the story. I wanted the audience to feel the curiosity and franticness I was feeling during the time of my literary breakthrough. In addition, the frantic pace contrasted well from the calmer and more evaluative tone the conclusion took when I wanted to convey my takeaways when looking at this event in retrospect. What also helped me craft this piece was the collaborative aspect. In peer-review, I received lots of good feedback that asked a lot of clarifying questions regarding the story being told. These questions were ones I did not ask myself when reading my essay and definitely helped the structure of my essay in the final piece. One student suggested to only narrate in first person for not only for the sake of structure, but she told me it was more effective as it allowed the reader to really understand the internal struggle. In addition, reading other peoples pieces opened my mind and inspired me to use other literary devices such as ask questions in internal dialogue.

An area in the literacy narrative I felt I could’ve improved upon was my conclusion. It felt rushed and too dense. The ideas I was trying to reflect on were only put into one sentence each and weren’t expanded on due to the limitation of the word count. I ended up blatantly stating the purpose and outcome of the experience rather than showing it through some form of gratification in the first person of the time period I was referring to.

The next piece I wrote for this class was an exploratory essay. The purpose for writing the exploratory essay was to report, discuss and describe a topic from 19^th century Russian Love Literature to show my knowledge on the subject and how well I could convey it into a paper for any audience who is interested in 19^th century Russian literature. In my piece, I chose to explore the Femme Fatale Archetype and her psychological qualities. In this paper, I was to maintain an unbiased attitude to properly inform the audience without providing my personal opinion on the character based off of the readings and information I have accumulated this semester from lectures, primary and secondary sources. The primary source I used was First Love by Ivan Turgenev. Throughout the essay I explored the characteristics of the Femme Fatale archetype Zinaida, where I broke her different qualities down to outline my essay.

“Since the power of the Femma Fatale comes from exploiting men, she must only be around men she can master or else her reputation as a Femme Fatale is at risk. Princess Zinaida in one of her few moments of vulnerability and honesty, she admits to Volodia “No; I can’t care for people I have to look down upon. I must have someone who can master me… I hope I may never come across any one like that! I hope never to be caught in anyone’s claws.(Turgenev, 163),” However, she is unfortunate as she crosses paths with Volodia’s father who is the most successful out of all of the beloveds to master Zinaida. What makes Volodia’s father stand out is simply his will. As Volodia’s father tells Volidia, “Will, his own will, and it gives power, which is better than liberty. Know how to will and you will be free, and you will lead (Turgenev, 160),” he applies it himself mastering Zinaida where in the end he becomes the sadist and Zinaida turns into the masochist as he whips Zinaida where she “slowly raises her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of red upon it (Turgenev, 195).”

In this piece, my strongest points were in the way in which I utilized and weaved quotes to helped support the points I was trying to make in each paragraph. By weaving quotes, I was able to connect two parts of the story to bring forward a bigger idea. An example is in the piece from my exploratory essay above where I show how Zinaida foreshadows her masochistic endeavors with Volodija’s father in the ending. Weaving this quotes toghter allowed me to highlight important pieces without too much “fluff” to utilize my word count on other important points.         Another part of the essay I felt strong about is towards the end of the paper when I talk about the Femme Fatale in modern culture where I mention the movie Gilda. In this part of the essay, I applied knowledge prior to the semester from my high school IB Film class, where I also studied the Femme Fatale and her characteristics in early 20^th century film noir. This part I feel shows my overall interest in the topic and how the impact of the Femme Fatale archetype stems beyond 19^th century Russian culture. My intention of including this part was to serve as an extra/interesting point before closing out the essay.

An area where I can improve in this essay was my transitions. At times, I would jump from one aspect of the Femme Fatale to another that didn’t connect, even though the ideas might be in depth and solid. This made the paper appeared rushed and sloppy which I can admit was a lack result of time management.

For my final paper, which was my critical analysis, “Flaws of the Femme Fatale,” I carried over the same topic as my exploratory essay, which was the Femme Fatale. The only difference is I went further in depth and argued a very specific point about the archetype and argued how the author Ivan Turgenev conveys this idea in his story First Love using his literary techniques. For this essay, my intent was to argue how the Femme Fatale is wicked by nature and how Turgenev uses the character Volodija, to showcase the Femme Fatale this way through a fairly objective first person encounter. As a student of IB Film in high school, I have built a personal curiosity for this character after watching Femme Fatale characters dictate the plot of a movie and overrule the intentions of protagonists and antagonists. I learned this is the same case with 19^th century Russian love and society literature.

“In Turgenev’s First Love, the protagonist Volodija who tells the story of his first love at 16 years old provides a “first person narration on past events, which forces a certain objectivity about the experiences narrated” (Mills 434). Throughout the story, Volodija constantly reflects on his feelings, evaluating and asking himself questions about his own emotions after almost every encounter with the Femme Fatale Zinaida. He indulges “into intensive description, reverting to his contemplative nature.” (Mills 435). After leaving Zinaida’s house where her beloveds/hypnotized men played games revolving around her body and Volodija almost admitted his secret (that he loves her), he states, “Yes, Zinaida amused herself hugely at my expense. For three weeks, I saw her every day, and what didn’t she do with me!.. In our house she was transformed into a young lady, a young princess, and I was a little overawed by her. I was afraid of betraying myself before my mother…” (Turgenev 163-164). This level of awareness Volodija shows over his love for Zinaida is something the other men in this short story do not appear to obtain as Turgenev purposefully only shows the other men when they are around Zinaida, where we can only see the surface their personalities. Questioning how his own relationship will become as a result of being acquainted with Zinaida shows a level of maturity and caution that leads the reader to believe he is neither fully mastered by Zinaida or masters Zinaida. This objectivity assures the reader that the perspective read from is most fair when observing the behavior of the Femme Fatale through a first person encounter.”

In this paper, I feel like my use of secondary sources has improved compared to my exploratory essay. This was simply an aspect of time management where I made deeper annotations into the secondary sources and found valid points by respected scholars to back up my claim. I was confident enough in my secondary sources to weave them into my own analysis, showing how my ideas aligned with some of the people I read. Because of my improved annotation skills, the structure and organization of this paper improved as well. My transitions from one body paragraph to another were more fluid and eventually led up to my conclusion without any big leaps or noticeable digression.

An area where I feel like I could’ve improved on was my conclusion. I was timid on this section because I was concerned about sounding redundant with the points I made in each body paragraph where I connect back to my thesis. Instead, my conclusion felt too small and appears rushed into crammed sentences that lack depth. During my peer review, I asked a student for advice on closing out the essay. He told me to ask thought provoking questions to give the audience a chance to make a conclusion of their own. I tried this, but simply due to lack of time management, I failed to think of open-ended questions that I felt would’ve been appropriate for the reader to think of after reading my argument.

As a person who is constantly looking to improve my writing skills, especially in academic papers, I felt this course has helped me not only point out areas in my writing where I need to improve, but also understand where I am strong and did not acknowledge prior to this class. The greatest strength I showed in these papers was my curiosity and enthusiasm towards the topics I was writing about as I constantly went in depth to show my true understanding of the subject I wrote about. Taking lots of time and caution into reading the primary source, I was able to make concrete arguments where I expanded and analyze arguments of my own. One area that goes beyond actual writing style or structure that I saw needed overall improvement was my time management, especially in my last two pieces. A lot of errors or areas where I felt I was weak was due to a lack of time management. I could’ve used this time to read my papers over several times with a fresh mind and fix any organization errors, as well as annotate my secondary sources to apply to my last two papers.

Looking back at these pieces, I would not change anything because they will show how far I’ve come when I look back on them as I continue to write and improve on my academic literary skills. However, I will not say I am overall satisfied with the outcomes of the works I’ve written. Putting more time into research and dissecting secondary sources to back of my claims could have been the difference in grade letters, especially for my exploratory essay. When reading these, I hope you understand they are products of my curiosity mixed with an attempt to inform readers on topics I personally found interesting.