Post 4: Reflection for "Saxophone" Essay

  Here are my answers to the reflection worksheet I completed on 9/11/2021 after writing my first Q1 style essay about Ai's Poem "The Man with the Saxophone."  

SCORES CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.4  What score did you give yourself? Why? Use the language of the rubric or scoring guide. I would give myself a 1-3-0.  I believe that I deserve the thesis point. My thesis can be found at the beginning and end of the piece. The beginning responds to the prompt well by identifying the author Ai) and selected passage (The Man with the Saxophone). I also explained the tools that added complexity and explained that AI was successful in his attempts to add them in.  In terms of my analysis, I was pleased with my first attempt. I would give myself 3 out of 4 possible points. I provided specific evidence from the beginning of the passage, and used contextual evidence to the setting to address why the author may have felt the way he did. I also addressed the tone shift after the narrator met the man with the saxophone in a way that he did not expect. My last piece of evidence referred to his metaphorical way that the night transformed the narrator’s attitudes of the city. I think these were all three very strong points, but I am not sure if I addressed one idea that follows the line of reasoning throughout the entire passage. I also don’t know if I went deep enough in addressing the implications of the tools I noticed. While my evidence was cohesive, I do not think I went quite far enough in my overall evidence building to give myself the full 4 points.  In terms of the sophistication point, I don’t think I earned the point. Yes, I did use a few literary tools and expand on my ideas based on what I noticed and knew before I started to read the passage, but I think I did not build a cohesive enough essay to earn the full sophistication point.

INTERPRETATION CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.1.c & CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.1.a (Knowledge of scoring guide, sample essays, scoring commentary) How is it similar to and different from other tasks or assessments that we have completed in class?  This essay was similar to some of the rhetorical analysis we did in class with the song. Songs are written in verse, similar to how the poem was written. The song I chose also had a significant tone shift, similar to how the poem had a tone shift. I also have done rhetorical analysis essays in AP Comp that are a little similar to this one.

OUTCOME CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.1.c What have I learned from this about my skill levels at this point? ? I have learned that I have a solid base for the rest of the year. I think that there is a long way to go until I am ready for the exam, but since this is my first time trying something new, I am impressed that I have made it through the entire essay section of the exam with lots of new learnings. I am excited to continue learning more about these skills in the future!  What do I need to do to improve my performance on future tasks? One thing I definitely need to do is explain how the tools I identify add to the overall complexity, and what they do. I think I am pretty solid with understanding the literary and rhetorical tools and terms, but I can do more practice and read more examples of how the analysis continues to influence the text as a whole that influences the line of reasoning.