What has your educational journey been like?
Due Date: September 4th, 2022
Length: 2-3 pages
Format: 12 point font, double-spaced, 1 inch margins. In the top right header, include your full name, the name of this class (ENGL 1020/1021), and the date. Include a title centered at the top of your essay. Include page numbers at the bottom of every page.
Submit your assignment here.
Assignment Description:In this essay, you will reflect on your personal educational journey. What does “education” mean to you? In what contexts and settings have you had meaningful educational experiences, and in what contexts and settings have you had negative experiences? What kind of learner are you, and what is your relationship with learning? You will reflect on any experiences that relate to these questions, explaining why they were meaningful to you.
A successful autobiography must be focused, vivid and descriptive. As readers, we want to see, hear, and feel your experience. But this assignment also asks you to reflect on and analyze your experiences. You will make decisions about what experiences to discuss and how to connect those key experiences into a central argument about your own educational journey. After reading your autobiography, a reader should come away with an understanding of both what you experienced and why those experiences were significant.
I encourage you to think broadly about the word “education.” You may reflect on your experiences in a classroom, but you should also reflect on educational experiences outside of the classroom. Perhaps your most important teacher wasn’t a high school teacher but a grandparent.I encourage to approach this essay creatively, giving yourself plenty of time to reflect and brainstorm. Here are several prompts or questions to help you get started. You definitely won’t want to tackle all of them in a 2-3 page paper, so once you’ve brainstormed fully, you’ll want to narrow and focus your paper. You may also find an angle that is different than any I’ve suggested here.
Brainstorming Questions:
Who has been your most important and effective teacher? What was it about him or her that made them so effective? What was the most important thing you learned from him or her?
Think of a kind of knowledge or “literacy” you have that’s valuable to you. It may be a “classroom” knowledge or it may not be. Why is this knowledge valuable to you? Where or in what context did you learn it? How do you use it in your everyday life?
Do you think that so-called “formal” education – i.e., school-based education – is important? Why or why not? What experiences have you had that have brought you to that opinion?
Have you generally enjoyed school? Why or why not?
Have you felt that your specific needs as a student have generally been met? Have you felt supported as a student? Why or why not? How could your experiences have been improved?
What have been the greatest obstacles to learning in your life? How have you dealt with them?
What is your relationship like with reading? Do you enjoy it? Why or why not?
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Sep 4th, 2022
