Final Reflection
Reflections
Engagement
Meaningful writing is achieved through sustained engagement in literate practices (e.g., thinking, researching, reading, interpreting, conversing) and through revision.
At the start of this year, I felt like I was thrown straight into writing and I had to engage right away. I’ve been very grateful for the need to hustle because it gave me more motivation seeing the rest of the class working as hard as I was. I really don’t remember another English class where I was required to be this engaged, or at least I can’t recall anything. While doing the research for this, I learned so much more about myself and my family. Talking to my dad helped to fill in all these empty holes that were left in my family history. One part of the writing practice was to go and talk to a tutor at one of the SLCC campuses. Talking face to face with someone about my paper really helped me because I’m better at absorbing information when it is actually told to me, rather than reading words from a screen. The only way to really get a good experience out of all this writing is to really be engaged.
Meaningful writing is achieved through sustained engagement in literate practices (e.g., thinking, researching, reading, interpreting, conversing) and through revision.
At the start of this year, I felt like I was thrown straight into writing and I had to engage right away. I’ve been very grateful for the need to hustle because it gave me more motivation seeing the rest of the class working as hard as I was. I really don’t remember another English class where I was required to be this engaged, or at least I can’t recall anything. While doing the research for this, I learned so much more about myself and my family. Talking to my dad helped to fill in all these empty holes that were left in my family history. One part of the writing practice was to go and talk to a tutor at one of the SLCC campuses. Talking face to face with someone about my paper really helped me because I’m better at absorbing information when it is actually told to me, rather than reading words from a screen. The only way to really get a good experience out of all this writing is to really be engaged.
Writing
Writing is a resource people use to do things, be things, and make things in the world. During this week, our class has been doing research on our rhetorical analysis. Throughout this process, I have read through many different papers in which different people are expressing their viewpoints on more controversial topics. This made me think about how one person’s writing has the capabilities to change the way people view the world. In one of the articles I read, the writer was restating how the use of profanity can change the legitimacy of a topic or show more emphasis on said topic matter. Taking this example into consideration I tried to apply this knowledge to my writing, making sure that I kept in mind that my writing my be able to influence more people than the demographic I am aiming at. I am quite proud that I have been given the opportunity to see how my writing is not only shaping me, but my fellow peers as well. |
Rhetoric
Rhetoric provides a method for studying the work that language and writing do.
This week in class, we turned in the draft for our Rhetorical analysis and holy smokes, what a week this has been. We had the opportunity to read our classmates papers and write feedback, and I had a lot of fun writing reviews for the two analyses I read. The first one was almost 5 pages long and filled to the brim with emotion, so I had a field day with it. The author wrote how all three examples of ethos, pathos, and logos were used in the article they were analyzing and that actually helped me as a read through the same article. The main article was very persuasive on it’s own, but paired with the analysis down by a student really helped to get the point they were trying to get across stand out. Besides having a better understanding of individual pieces of writing, I have been able to pick out specific writing styles more easier as we as a class have studied ethos, pathos, and logs for our Rhetorical analysis.
Rhetoric provides a method for studying the work that language and writing do.
This week in class, we turned in the draft for our Rhetorical analysis and holy smokes, what a week this has been. We had the opportunity to read our classmates papers and write feedback, and I had a lot of fun writing reviews for the two analyses I read. The first one was almost 5 pages long and filled to the brim with emotion, so I had a field day with it. The author wrote how all three examples of ethos, pathos, and logos were used in the article they were analyzing and that actually helped me as a read through the same article. The main article was very persuasive on it’s own, but paired with the analysis down by a student really helped to get the point they were trying to get across stand out. Besides having a better understanding of individual pieces of writing, I have been able to pick out specific writing styles more easier as we as a class have studied ethos, pathos, and logs for our Rhetorical analysis.
Action Writing is a form of action. Through writing people respond to problems and can create change in the world. For the duration of these past few weeks, I have had to put forth effort and actually act on my plans more quickly than I usually need to. It was quite fun to begin planning my Civic Engagement Project as well as plan for my next learning buffet. I would like to focus on the learning buffet, as I feel it has required more of my time at the present moment than the C.E.P. I had to round up a group of my friends to come with me to a farmer's market, which was no easy task. With several lopsided schedules paired with lazy teenagers, I would relate the experience I had with scheduling with that of herding cats. But, through taking action and not backing down I was able to convince a small group of 5 not including myself to come down to the Winter Farmer's Market downtown. |
Contingency
The meanings and effects of writing are contingent on situation, on readers, and on a texts purpose/uses.
In light of recent events, I have had to recreate some contingency plans in case anything goes wrong with my school work for the remainder of this month. I've been told that before I begin writing, I should brainstorms at least three ideas to go off from. That way, if one idea doesn't work for the task at hand, then I have two other fail safes to fall back on. But, because I was awful busy and lazy these past weeks, my original plan for my Civil Engagement Project fell through and left me in a bit of a panic. I won't go too much into detail, but know that my computer corrupted the files on both the hard drive and thumb drive with my project final on it. While this was a big punch to the gut, it made me realize that even if you have one backup, it may not be enough to save you from disaster. This also made me understand that physical copies are a way better fail safe then digitized ones.
The meanings and effects of writing are contingent on situation, on readers, and on a texts purpose/uses.
In light of recent events, I have had to recreate some contingency plans in case anything goes wrong with my school work for the remainder of this month. I've been told that before I begin writing, I should brainstorms at least three ideas to go off from. That way, if one idea doesn't work for the task at hand, then I have two other fail safes to fall back on. But, because I was awful busy and lazy these past weeks, my original plan for my Civil Engagement Project fell through and left me in a bit of a panic. I won't go too much into detail, but know that my computer corrupted the files on both the hard drive and thumb drive with my project final on it. While this was a big punch to the gut, it made me realize that even if you have one backup, it may not be enough to save you from disaster. This also made me understand that physical copies are a way better fail safe then digitized ones.
Deliberation
Writing is a process of deliberation. It involves identifying and enacting choices, strategies, and moves.
I feel that over the winter holiday break, many students loose their sense of time and work because the holiday rush is upon us and the New Year is fast approaching as well. This is also proving to be difficult for me because while I may have a plan to finish up my school work that pin points what I should be doing down to the tee, my bed is nice and warm and my motivation is non-existent. However, to combat this and ensure I don't fall victim to the allures of laziness and sleep, I put up sticky notes all over my pillow and walls so I'm constantly reminded of what I need to get done. Fun fact, when I can't sleep or I'm stressed about forgetting what I need to do the next day, I write down everything in a list on a sticky note and leave it for morning me to take care of. This actually does really help with homework over the break because each day I can do a little bit of my homework so I don't pull an all-nighter the day before we get back to school.