Collin Brauer

Final Reflection

Learning Goal #4: Analyze and respond critically and creatively to the
ideas and strategies in the writing of others through reading a variety of
texts, including academic discourse.
I think my development as a writer has greatly improved this year. I
started out this semester with the hope to at least get an A on a paper and
I describe that in my identity narrative at the beginning of the year. In my
Midterm reflection, I explained each improvement with an example from my
work throughout the year. Now in the final draft Ill explain how I
accomplished this goal.
I read a lot of research for this class and a lot of my paper and I feel
like that definitely showed throughout my paper even from my earliest ones
for example from my first big paper in this class I mentioned information
about another topic that strongly related to the what I was discussing and
gave sold information to support it, One famous case is Lyle Alzado, he was a long
time NFL lineman and was just a ginormous man. He was a PED user to the max he used it so
much it made him look unhealthy but during his career he had great success. After his career was
over he had the worst kind of long term effects, right before his death Alzado puts all of the
blame on PEDs. He says that PEDs caused him to be like the way he was. This resonated
throughout the sports world and that example to this day is still brought up in the argument if

PEDs should be allowed in sports. I felt like this definitely was one of my better writing
moments this year even though it was on the first one. It showed the early improvement I had
with writing multiple drafts I had early improvement.
I think the project that definitely showed my most improvement was my last one the
mediation essay. Throughout the essay, I feel like I really accomplished the learning objective set
at the beginning of the year. I analyzed and responded critically and creatively to the ideas I put
forth. For example, this paragraph from my mediation essay strongly showed my improvement
of my skills over the year. I showed the ability to respond critically and elaborate easily. Capital
punishment is seen as a way to keep society safe, yet there are still many debates on whether the
death penalty should even be an option or if the offenders should just receive life in prison. These
arguments come from the idea that it is morally wrong to kill a person, but no one is truly sure if it is
morally wrong to kill someone with intent to stop them from killing in the future. This is something
that is decided and varies from person to person in society. Another argument has is about the money,
they say that someone on death row is lengthy and an expensive process. For a person sentenced to a
maximum security prison for one year within the state of Rhode Island according to the Department of
Corrections, it comes out to $176,174. Average age of a murder is approximately 27 years old, and
the average life expectancy in the United States is 80 years old. This means that you would be paying
for someone to stay in a maximum security prison for about 53 years. 53 years times the amount
from above to keep someone in a maximum security prison for one year gives you $9,337,222 for the
prisoner to spend life in a maximum security prison. The death penalty on its own usually costs
between $1,030,000 and $1,300,000. Although both are large sums of money, it still is $8 million
dollars cheaper to have someone sentenced to death. (Death Row USA)

All in all, this class definitely helped me improve as a writer. I feel like I set the bar high
with the first essay but I feel like my following essays I did just as well if not better.