“This has been an amazing year. I really feel like I grew as a writer. I was working hard and it was paying off. I began taking risks in my papers, and they were not bad. I really stepped up in my editing of my papers. My grammar skills are really improving. I am happy with my writing and the way that I have improved, but the biggest change that I have noticed is how much more confident I have become in my writing. When I look back at my first post here, The First Taste of College Writing, I see a scared girl, who was convinced that she needed a lot of help with her writing. Now in my last post, Multimodal in Multiple Ways, I see a girl who finally believes in her abilities to be good at something that is not mathematical. All through high school, I was always good at math but never stood out in English classes, now I see that it was because I did not believe in myself.
This semester I had to look at many different issues from feminism in the workplace to stigmas against mental illness. I never realized how much that these two topics, in particular, mattered to me. I have friends who are staunch feminists, but I never saw myself that way. Now I see that feminism presents itself in many different ways.
This semester I had to battle my own demons and I was able to accomplish that through my writing for this class. When I was writing my argument paper and I was spending hours looking for a credible source that says that mental illness is not a legitimate illness, I realized that my dad never saw me any differently, he just did not understand me and did not know how to help. He needed the knowledge to learn how to help me, and now he has it and can hopefully use it when dealing with my little sister, who is starting to act out.
I learned about how I write to get points across this semester. Writing essays is about having an opinion and trying to prove it to your readers. I learned that to do this I had to have a lot of back up for my argument. Even when it was not required for the assignment I would go out and find extra information because I did not believe I had enough backup. In my analysis paper, I went to find the statistics that my TED talk referenced and tried to find the more current stats, “What makes me feel better is that this talk was done in 2010, but when I did my own research I found that according to catalyst.org that in 2015 only 19.9 percent of board seats at S&P Fortune 500 are filled by women.” This was just one example of me trying to have every possible piece of evidence to back up my claims.
I also realized that I like to get readers hooked on my paper within my first couple of sentences. I guess I feel as though if I do not immediately get them hooked, then they will not continue to read and all my hard work will be for nothing.
In my argument paper, I start off the paper saying, “If you asked everybody on 5th Avenue in New York City I bet that they would all say that they have been nervous at least once in their lives. Butterflies in your stomach on the first day of school, feeling like you are going to throw up just because your crush smiled at you, or even just the slight shake of your hand as you turn in that big paper you worked so hard on, these are all examples of being nervous, but some people feel like that for almost all of the time.” This was something that was relatable and intriguing and I believe was a good hook. I also believe that they also have to at least hint at what you are going to talk about. This was better done in my analysis paper than the argument paper, “There are just not enough women leaders in this world! Sheryl Sandberg’s talk, “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders”, addresses this fact and discusses how to fix it. She does not talk about the things managers and governments can do, but rather what individual women can do to rise to the top.” This intro was much more direct and to the point, but I think that it was still effective.
I believe that my argument paper is my best paper this semester. For one thing, it was my highest grade, but it was also something that I was really proud of. I believe that I was able to prove my point convincingly by having evidence in support of my argument as well as evidence against counterarguments, “As I was doing research for this project I tried to find credible sources that would back up the stigmas against mental health, but I could not find any.”
My weakest paper was definitely the first one on the Common Read book. I was still nervous about my writing and was not willing to take any risks. This caused the paper to be bland and not show what I was capable. At the time I remember being proud of it because it was one of the longest papers I had ever written, but now I can see that it was not as good as I could have made it.
My writing this semester has gotten so much better in my opinion. I know that some people would think that a high B is an amazing grade, but I grew up in a household where every time I got an A- it was not okay with my dad. I was always expected to have the perfect grades, and eventually, I grew to always push myself to be better, but sometimes that goes too far. I have to be prouder of my works and I think that I have definitely grown in that aspect.
This class has been one of my favorites and I have learned so much from it. I know that I still have to work on making a better plan at the beginning of projects and so many other things, but, for once, I am more proud of my accomplishments than upset with my misfortunes. This class has been eye opening and I cannot wait to see where next semester goes.