Final Reflection Letter

 

Dear Professor Andrews,

 

I have never been a big fan of English classes, but I would be lying if I said that I haven’t developed as a writer. It makes me proud to have moments that I can read over some of my pieces of writing say, “This sounds good! I’ve got skills.” Even though I took English 1101 first semester, I believe that your English 1102 class was the tip of the iceberg. I came to your class not knowing what to expect. I just thought that it was going to be another English class that will require me to write my life away, but it wasn’t.

 

One of the first things that we did our daybooks was about good writing rules. The only rules I could really think of were basically about grammar, thesis statements and proofreading your work. I didn’t really know that there were other great things to consider when writing a paper until we read two pieces by O’Conner and Morrow. One of the things I took from these pieces is O’Conner’s rule saying, “Don’t make yourself the center of the universe.” I also learned from Morrow that I don’t have to write long paragraphs in my writing all of the time.

 

I can write this sentence and leave it here just like this. Who’s going to tell me that I shouldn’t?

 

Learning these little rules about “good writing” helped me to getmore comfortable with my writing. I started getting to the point where I could start writing pieces from a new perspective and it made me feel more confident in my writing, even though I know that I still have a lot improve on. The next thing that we started getting into was our first blog post after we discovered how to set up our wix pages. My very first blog was called Feel the Love. I chose one of my favorite songs and decided to use those lyrics as an example of good writing. I was able to explain those lyrics and why I thought those lyrics could be considered as good writing. I hope that I inspired you to listen to the actual song.

 

After we learned about “good writing” we started getting into rhetorical writing. I had no idea what rhetoric was, but I knew that I would soon learn the meaning. We watched a very long movie about Randy Pausch that almost put me to sleep, but inspired me at the same time. I still slightly have trouble understanding all the concepts of rhetorical writing, but the video helped me to makes some connections between Randy’s speech and rhetorical writing. Learning some of these concepts has made it easier for me to make sure I know who my audience is and the purpose of my writing.

 

One of my favorite pieces of writing is my personal credo. I believe that my personal credo represents who I am, so I really enjoyed writing it. I think that I made good writing choices for this piece and I tried to add a belief that I thought would show my sense of humor and to make it more personal. I had a long list of beliefs written in my daybook form when I was brainstorming about all of the things that I believe in, and I realized that I believe in a lot of things that fit into the same category. The personal credo leads into our This I Believe essays. This was one of our major assignments and one of my strongest pieces of writing this semester. After narrowing my list of beliefs down to my top two, I realized that both of those beliefs could be combined together. I decided to name the piece Just A Prayer Away. I already knew that I wanted to write about my pawpaw, but I knew that it would be very hard to tell his story and talk about my belief in 5oo words or less. Getting the word count down for this essay was the most difficult part of the assignment for me, but I was able to use the eliminating wordiness methods that we had learned in class. I received a lot of positive feedback during one of the peer editing workshops in class, but the word count was still an issue. After I received your feedback response for the essay, I was able to revise the areas that you had suggested. I believe that I did a good job focusing on the rhetorical content of my paper, which is why I think it is my strongest piece.

 

Another one of my best pieces is theNacirema modern ritual piece. It was the first time that I had to create a piece with a partner as well as my first time being introduced to this different type of writing style. Working with a partner made the assignment more interesting because my partner Jacqui and I were able to brainstorm and agree on a lot of ideas; however, this assignment became difficult to complete with a partner outside of the classroom because we both had to edit the document. Miner’s piece was one of my favorite pieces that we read in class. I believe that Miner’s piece and this assignment opened my mind and allowed me to view writing from a new perspective.

 

One of the major assignments we had to do this semester was the inquiry research paper. This assignment gave me the opportunity to explore a topic of my choice that I would like to learn more about. Since I love singing and writing songs, I decided to do research on the images of women in the music. Then I realized that I couldn’t think of anything else that I wanted to research about that topic so I decided to make my topic less specific. Since I believe that the music industry tends to focus on image just as much as the music of an artist, I changed my topic to talent and image in the music industry. I believe that I made a good choice because I was able to come up with more than one inquiry question based on that general topic. The most difficult part about this assignment was finding credible sources. Getting peer feedback during the in class topic presentation gave me ideas about sources that seemed more credible. After I got all of my sources together, I was able to complete my rough draft and the peer editing workshop. I think that the outcome of my research paper was better than I expected. Digitizing the research paper was the fun part, but it was a very tedious process. I had to figure out how I wanted the layout of the page to be and where I wanted to have different sections of information. I believe that I was able to find really great images and videos to go along with my inquiry information, but I still think there are room for improvements. I realized how my inquiry research paper just seemed to come to life after I digitized it!

 

Overall, I had a great time in your class this semester. I never would haveimagined that I would be able to right about so many different things or learn diferrent types of writing styles. Not only that, but I was able to grow more confident about my own writing. I'm finally that student that can right a paper quickly and efficiently, without worry about every single flaw that another person may find. I am able to choose an audience to write for, but I also will keep in mind that I am writing for myself. What I want to say in my writing pieces actually matter. I am living, I am learning, and I am writing. Your class, the assignments I had to do and even your great personality has really opened my eyes abd allowed me to view writing from a new perspective. I will always try to develop my skills as a writer, but I can defintely say that I have grown a lot as a writer just by being in this class. Thank you for helping me push through my journey of living, learning, and writing.

 

Sincerely,

 

Kaitlin Mason