Reflection

Over the course of the semester, I believe that my writing has improved a pretty good deal. I have learned a bit pertaining to grammar, such as with “sense” and “since”, and I also have learned some more about citations and how to properly weave them into my papers. Mostly I have grown in being a creative writer and being more open in my writing. I was not as restricted in this course as I have been in the past.

Personally, I have always absolutely loved writing literally ever since I learned how to write. So my feelings have not changed much other then the fact that I have learned to love story writing-or more free writing even more than before.

Writing my Starbucks process analysis paper was my absolute favorite. I, of course, was very passionate about my subject and already knew a ton of information about the topic. I enjoyed being creative with it and was delighted about the fact that I had some people tell me that they used some of my tips the next time they visited Starbucks.

I had been really excited to write my research paper in the beginning. I did not know anything about the Rococo Era and thought I had a good angle going about it. But I was so crunched on time with other huge papers being due, in addition to other work, that in the end I was pretty much throwing it all together just so that I would meet the criteria. So the research paper was the most difficult for me under those standards.

I would have to say that my critical review covering Blink was where I have improved the most. It may not necessarily be obvious to anyone who reads it, but my prior teacher would see it. And I think it is more of a personal improvement. I have always been awful with book reading responses only because I had no passion for it. But I feel like I pulled myself together well for this one.
My favorite homework assignment would have to be my response to Between Art and Architecture, which I have also included in my final portfolio. I enjoyed the reading, and therefore really liked doing the assignment. I also really liked editing and responding to other students' rough drafts for their papers.

Really, I was not the biggest fan of The Curious Researcher. I was so bored with it and just did not like having to answer so many questions about other written documents. I also was not too thrilled about Blink. I just did so many book responses like this the past two years that I more dreaded it rather than enjoyed it.

As far as in class writings are concerned, they were very open and I felt like I could really write about whatever came to mind. I was not really required to think, and I favored that. When I took other literature courses, I had such strict guidelines as to what I could write, that if I wrote as freely, there would more likely be conflict.

I was asked to include my final drafts, in addition to an out of class writing and in class writing. The out of class writing I included in my final portfolio was the piece by Maya Lin, that I had mentioned earlier in my favorite writing section. There was a large amount of pathos in the story, and so I found myself really able to enjoy it. Because of the pathos, it also caused me to include emotion in my response. Included is also the most recent in class writing that we have written. When I first came in to the class, as I have mentioned, I was not used to such a free thought form of writing, In the beginning I was pretty rigid with it and tried to put so much thought into it that I was stuck for most of the time. This last one I wanted to include because it contains my most free form of mind up to right now.
I have taken several writing and literature classes- a couple that were college courses, and I still benefited from taking this particular course. It really is a lot more fun than most others I have taken, and really students should be opened minded about it all. Do all of your work- this class really doesn't take up a lot of your time, so just do it.

This course was put on my schedule for me, coming in as an incoming freshman, but when I saw I had it, I envisioned a repetitive class that called for an incredible amount of writing, with boring lectures. It did exceed my expectations-that is for sure. And honestly, I am glad that I had to take it.

Before I entered this course, I realized that audience was important, but I didn't realize how important it really is. In this course it took the part of a huge aspect which we were asked to focus on specific audiences for certain writings. I also had never used a library online database to find journals and such like we did for the research paper. That was very useful and more challenging to have to really search within only that database. In the writing process, I have Brain Stormed every once in awhile, but not the type where I jot down several of my ideas and narrow it down-it was more like putting down one idea and brainstorming how to use it. Having peers read and edit my drafts really helped me, and I enjoyed that process. Overall, I feel like I have grown in all areas of the Course Goals and Objectives and I definitely feel like my writing, thinking and collaboration skills have improved because of this class.