Final Reflection

When it came to writing I thought I knew all that I needed to know to be an above average writer. I have written difficult papers in the past before but had never reflected on a single one of them. Throughout this class I have found that reflection is the best way to understand the strengths and weaknesses in my writing because it involves taking a step back and looking at my work before, during and after I had finished with it. This class, particularly the reflections and weekly analysis that I wrote in the Common Place Book, taught me that I was far from knowing everything about being a good writer.

My first reflection I wrote on a paper and my first CRQ were weak and showed a writer that was insecure and overcompensated using large words, lots of summary and a bad implementation of quotations taken from articles and writing prompts. The difference I found in writing in the Common Place Book versus speaking in class was that the ideas I discussed and the personal stories or feelings I wrote in my Common Place Book were only between my teacher and me. The idea that the Common Place Book was a personal space to discuss thoughts and feelings comforted me and helped me to use it to its full potential as a helpful writing tool. By using the Commonplace book like a personal writing journal, I found that the most important part of the writing process is the reflection written on the progress of the current paper before it is finished. In these reflections I was able to see the most growth and even though I was writing as an assignment, it helped me immensely to flesh out the things I was struggling with. All of my life and especially at the start of this class, I hated research and analytical writing. I always found that writing on topics I was passionate about or personal stories came more naturally to me. However, after cranking out a CRQ week after week, I have become a writer that can respond to a prompt even if the prompt mentions things I have never heard of, let alone written about. Not only can I respond and write about these topics weekly, but I can do so confidently.

By doing weekly CRQ’s and reflections on my papers in the Commonplace Book, I have become a less formal more to the point writer who has found her own voice. I feel like I can write a well formulated response on any topic or prompt and still be able to implement things that are unique to me and my writing. I have exhibited so much growth in my writing and I hope that the learning does not stop there. I never again think that I know all I need to know about writing because if this class has taught me anything it is that I will never stop improving my writing skills.

Final Daily Write

I have learned a lot in this class about my self as a writer and my writing process that I will take with me whenever I write a paper for the rest of my life. I hope to carry on the confidence I feel with my writing now into Writing 102 as well as other classes. I hope that in Writing 102 I can work on writing better analysis so that it comes more naturally to me.

Children of Criminals CRQ

The New York Times article I chose for my CRQ was When Parents Are in Prison, Children Suffer by KJ Dell’Antonia. My attention was drawn to this article through the lines, “She is just one of the five million American children who have had a parent incarcerated at some point in their lives. Her father’s sentence is hers, too” (Dell’Antonia Para 3). As an avid watcher of Law and Order and as an American citizen who watches the news, I feel as though I have a good grasp on the insanely large number of people incarcerated for a multitude of reasons. However bad these people are, and I believe most of them are the worst kind of bad people, I rarely think about the families they leave behind. Every man behind bars has a mother and every woman behind bars has a father and depending how present or not present these people were in their lives, they are left to pick up the pieces after sentencing. I thought that the beginning of the article was common sense, of course a child of a criminal is negatively affected by their parent’s actions and jail sentence, how could they not be? It is sad to think that people can not stop their bad ways when they have children. I did not however realize that there were very few systems in place to help these children and that the burden often fell to their other parent or extended family. ““A prison sentence for a parent shouldn’t be a life sentence for a family,” said Ryan Chao, the Casey foundation’s vice president for civic sites and community change” (Dell’Antonia Para 11). I was intrigued to read about the Casey Foundations programs and plans to help convicts when they get out of prison to get their lives back on track for their kids and their programs to hopefully stop the cycle of crime from generation to generation. After reading this article, I realized that every person can see that the children of criminals are innocents, born into an unfortunate situation that was not of their choosing and that they need help. The children are not the bad guys and if the statistics are true then over five million American children are at risk because of the choices that their parents made. This really got me thinking why I had never heard of these programs or this problem before. Why are the children of criminals not talked about more? Just because their parents made mistakes and are possibly bad people does not make their innocent children guilty.

Dell’Antonia, KJ. “When Parents Are in Prison, Children Suffer.” Well. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2016.

MultiModal Reflection

I loved the MultiModal Unit. Not because it was a seemingly easy A, but because it was the chance to expand on a topic in my paper that I was really passionate about in a way that was easy and fun for my class to understand. The course learning outcome that I associated this project with was Purposes and Audience: Students will write with a variety of academic purposes for a variety of audiences. The game I created showed the way I feel about how women and girls are treated in today’s society and how it is setting us back, even if it doesn’t always seem like that. At first, I assumed my audience was men but once I started working I realized that as a woman, I had said some of the phrases written on the put-down cards and quickly broadened my audience. I found that everyone was guilty of thinking or saying the put-down phrases even if the words were spoken without hurtful intentions. When I watched my game being played, I found it very interesting that the audience was not exactly receptive and almost mocked the phrases that I had compiled. My game was not intended to make anyone feel bad or to call a certain group of people out, it was created to show that everyone is guilty of saying the things on the cards and people need to be aware of the impact of their words. I am very proud of my game and hope that my words and thoughts made an impact on the people that read them.