Referencing prior assignments in a course

[Merlin]

I'd ask your mentor. When I did that class, it was mostly copy and paste the previous assignments into final paper. I reworded and made the transitions better of course. But no, there was no need to cite myself within the same course for what was essentially draft into final. I did not lose any points.  But always ask your mentor to be sure what is wanted.

While you may get away with it, your earlier papers should have been entered into the plagiarism scanner when they were submitted. This means they will be matched against when the plagiarism check is run for any future papers that include the same text. Technically (and by this I mean according to standard academic rules) you are required to cite yourself if you quote from or paraphrase your own work in a later assignment. Yes, it sounds weird, but you can easily Google this to confirm.

They will usually let you off with a warning the first time, but you could see points deducted or a paper rejected for further violations.

If the assignments are part of the same class and they are expecting you to integrate them into the final work, then your instructor will be expecting this and you can disregard the note. But in almost every other case, this can create a problem for you. Particularly once you get into graduate-level courses.