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.
Tag: reflection
Why Reflect?
I think that reflection is key, following anything that you do creatively or intellectually, to really knowing how you felt and what you did. They say hindsight is 20/20 and I think that reflection in this class after large assignments, is a great way to let the teacher see your thought process, conclusions you came up with on your own about your work, and things you may have done differently. It is a great way to evaluate and comment on your writing process.
Rhetorical Analysis Unit Reflection
Unlike the last writing assignment, I started off struggling with serious writers block for the Rhetorical Analysis. I had a really hard time finding a New York Times Op-Ed piece that I felt confident would make a good topic for an extensive analysis. The day before my topic was due, I came across an article that had been posted that morning and immediately knew it was the one that I was going to be working with. Writing on Why Do We Teach Girls That It’s Cute to Be Scared by Caroline Paul really taught me about my writing process particularly the specifics of the Writing 100 outcome that includes brainstorming, planning, drafting, reviewing, revising, editing, and proofreading. The first draft I wrote was completely in agreement with every point the author made, as I had been upon reading the article for the first time. But once I started to dive deeper into underlying meaning and flesh out critical analysis, I realized that certain claims the author made, like the one where she believes in basically only one way to raise a daughter into a “right” type of woman, were claims that I did not agree with. I struggled once again, as I had in my last paper, with balancing the implementation of quotes to get my message across. I think that I did a much better job incorporating quotes into this paper and used much less to just as convincingly convey my points. In the past I have struggled with analysis, but for this paper, I think because it was only the analysis of one article, it came naturally once my writers block subsided. The only main problem I had was writing a conclusion, which now I realize I could have made stronger with more summary and closure. Overall, I am really proud of this paper and the things that it taught me.