My Thinking
Writing with a purpose has to be the most important lesson that I learned this semester. After all, if you do not have an intended purpose for your writing, then why are you writing? English 1102 has taught me a lot and even changed my writing style a bit. I have grown, developed new skills, challenged myself and my old habits quite a few times, set new goals and even made connections with what we were talking about in class to the outside world.
In my Informal Writing section, I realized that a lot of the writings that I picked were about “good writing” and what I thought it was, and also what it is not. There were a few articles that we went over as a class at the beginning of the semester, such as Stephen King’s “What is Writing” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Writing With Style”. Those articles gave me a whole new perspective on what good writing actually is. Good writing is clear and to the point. It gives your readers something to look forward to instead of them just reading you babbling on about something that does not really matter to you. Good writing helps you to feel the emotion and set the scene when it comes to what the writer is talking about. It kind of reminds me of a music video. Artist make videos to give you a visual of the words and what they want you to see when you hear those words. I have officially grown out of the “5 paragraph essay stage” and now I’m on to making whatever I choose to write, no matter the paragraph count, matter to my readers and myself.
Creating essays and projects that mattered to others was indeed challenging. Sometimes other readers or your peers don’t necessarily care for what you have to say in a paper. That is why I had to learn how to be authentic and tell a story, to keep other engage. If you are not engaged when you are reading something, then most likely you will just end up forgetting everything that you have read. Another challenging part of English 1102 was my digital inquiry project. There were so many details that I have learned in class when it comes to having things stand out, the placement of certain items, catching the attention of your reader, it almost became overwhelming trying to put the whole thing together. I think that overall, it came out better than I expected because I did have those tips in mind when it came to certain placement and eye-catching issues.
More than the digitalizing aspect of the inquiry project, writing the actual paper was the most difficult thing. I realized that I had picked a topic in which many academic articles are not written on. I got discouraged on how I was going to find the information to put in my 2,000 word essay to back up my opinions. Luckily, with the help of some of my peers reading and responding to my questions on how to find extra information, I was able to find more creative ways to find what I needed, such as watching documentaries on childhood stars. I enjoyed the peer review class days for that reason and many more. There were other times when my peers’ feedback helped me to turn my papers into something great. Even reviewing other peoples papers helped me because it gave me ideas on things that could do, and it was just great to help others to find new ways to perfect their papers like they had helped me. I never liked peer response before college, because in high school it was more of a time to add punctuation, correct a few spelling errors, and then talk to others. It was more than that in this class, so I really enjoyed it and the feedback that I received from everyone.
The theme of my writing is “The To-Do List”. Since this was my first year in college, I had to get used to new things, a lot more work, studying, prioritizing, and balancing everything else that I had to do. So, I started to keep a list of things that needed to be done that week on a board in my room. One by one, whenever I was able, I would go through the list scratching things off with excitement because I could finally relax. That is exactly how it was with my English assignments. I had to create my own separate to- do list and plan out when I would get it done. I would start off with possible topics, outlines, drafts, second drafts, a final draft, and sometimes more stuff in between. My writing would not be nearly as organized as it has grown to be with the steps that I have to take to complete everything. Writing it all down just made it that much easier to stay focus because I knew that just like my regular to-do list, I would soon be able to scratch everything off of my writing list and relax.
One of the more helpful things was the notes that we took on January 27th, 2014 on rhetoric, logos, pathos, ethos, etc. These notes played a part in putting my essays together and also my portfolio. As a writer, I had to choose how I wanted the layout of my papers to be and have a purpose for everything that I was doing within my papers. I had to think of the visual aspects, the genres of my paper, the occasion, and a lot of other things that helped to get my paper to a finished product. Without those notes, I think that some parts in my paper would be decent, but I would not have thought about simple things such as using your own examples in your writing or knowing when it is the right time to add your opinion and when it is not.
Overall, I learned a lot of lessons and tips in English 1102 that I plan on carrying on to any other class that I am assigned to write essays in. Whether personal or more academic, I have the right tools to go about creating a paper. I truly enjoyed this class and your fun teaching style that taught us how to make real connections when it comes to our writing and the outside world. I hope that you exploring the rest of my portfolio.
Final Reflective Letter
I believe that this music video, "Runaway Love" by Ludacris ft. Mary J. Blige, does a good job of showing scenes to go with the lyrics. This is a great example of how writing should be in my opinion.