Week 3：”Analyze the rhetorical situation of your Freshman Portfolio. For those few students
who do not have one only: analyze the rhetorical situation of your Freshman English
research paper/project”

My freshman English research paper is Researched Critical Analysis Essay describes the connection between Burnett’s experiences and her work. This is so that readers of Burnett’s children’s books can have a better understanding of how Burnett’s experiences led her to write classic children’s novels. I learned that the author I was researching was a depressed person and that her children’s books, A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, were based on her childhood experiences. Since A Little Princess and The Secret Garden is a famous and classic children’s novel that has also been adapted into a movie, many readers or people who have seen the movie need to learn more about Burnett’s experiences.

When I wrote the Researched Critical Analysis Essay, I also wrote the Exploratory essay, which is related and also uses the MLA format. There was also a need to expand on the theme I introduced in the Exploratory essay and then think about it in a larger context and use other sources as evidence for my claims. The topic of my Exploratory essay was what children can learn from children’s books, while the topic chosen for the Researched Critical Analysis Essay was the connection between Burnett’s experiences and her work. In writing a Researched Critical Analysis essay, I chose A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, both of which have optimistic endings, but the main character’s experiences and frustrations can be linked to Burnett’s. Her father died when she was three years old and her family was poor, which prompted her to write “The Little Princess”. Burnett struggled with depression for much of her life, so when she laid out her garden, she thought of the secret garden. Burnett used writing as an outlet for emotional expression.

At the time of writing this article, I still wrote it wrong regarding MLA format. And the same problem happened with the Exploratory essays. So what I know about MLA format, I still can’t write and don’t know the format very well and that’s what I need to improve. The point I like about this essay is that I researched the books I read on my own and asked questions and made claims about the opportunity. My understanding of my topic was from learning that Burnett is a depressed person and after learning that the main characters in the novels she writes have shades of the loved ones around her.

As I reflect on my writing, I need to understand more about the MLA format. The professor’s comments helped me by giving the citation generator and the Works Cited generator to process. Thus, improving my MLA citation forms and works cited. In class, we were also shown how to use the generator to get Works Cited and after learning, I used the generator to revise my Works Cited and citations. I used the generator to revise my Works Cited and citations to make my Researched Critical Analysis Essay better.