The thesis essentially says that his thesis is the problem, therefore, that is the problem. It broadly guides the paper that he’s going to be addressing flaws with his thesis, but while he says that his theses are usually too vague, he hasn’t gotten away from that at all in this thesis.
I would rate the paper a 3. They do generally remain on topic and they give examples of previous papers, but they don’t really answer the prompt. They identified where they were flawed in their thesis as opposed to making a claim about what they learned. This problem continued throughout the paper where they brought up the grades of previous papers.
I believe this essay is a cut above the previous one as they provide more specific detail in reflecting on specific mistakes and what they learned from them. The thesis is also more specific and more arguable. Therefore, I think it should be a 4.
This author has interpreted the prompt as asking what their problem with writing is as opposed to what they have learned throughout the course.
I’ve learned to avoid the seemingly common problem of over generalizing or telling a narrative of my improvement rather than focusing on how the class has helped me grow as a writer with specific evidence from the papers I have written.