During my time in this class I have learned a lot about myself as a writer over the course of this semester. I feel like this class has helped me hone my skills as a writer and made me take my writing to the next level. Due to the efficiency of our professor’s lessons and clarity of her directions, I got to use skills that I had never used before – and that was amazing!
During my time in this class I had written a couple of drafts for each of the essays that were assigned to us. For essay 1, I had used the skill of close reading to really interpret what the piece I was reading meant. There were parts of the assignment where I really needed to close read to use the information that I had learned into my essay to make it more solid and to back up my argument. Writing this essay made me realize that one should pay attention on how to approach such a topic aside from focusing on its content. Meaning, it taught me how to create an intellectual problem and taught me how to write in reader prose instead of writer prose. Also, when revising the essay, I found myself asking “why” a lot more often rather than the tradition “it’s wrong, change it.” The revision process was very helpful in pinpointing the reasons to why I wrote something – filtering the unnecessary information.
During my time writing essay 2, I found myself researching my topic in depth. The topic I was writing about was reparations for apartheid in South Africa. This was a difficult topic on paper, because there is no certain answer to my intellectual problem, however that is why I chose it. I figured, if I can’t fully answer my intellectual problem, I will try my best to move the argument along for someone else to answer in the future. While researching this topic to answer my intellectual problem, I found a lot of information that was very interesting to read. I now know the struggles and atrocities that victims of South African apartheid had to go through and found many reasons into why they deserve reparations from the South African government. Also, reverse outlining was very helpful in breaking down each paragraph of my essay to really interpret what content I wanted to include. When it came to peer review, my partners really helped me carve out a path that I can follow to ultimately answer my intellectual problem. This essay helped me learn about the correct ways to do proper research and the stray away from the side information out there. In some applications it may be useful, however if I was going to write a full-fledged research essay, I need concrete peer reviewed articles to support my claim. Some skills such as close reading and asking myself why I placed a segment in my essay also played a large part in the completion of the essay.
During my time making project 3, I found myself ripping apart my argument that I had for essay 2 and using the main argument to write a comic for my target audience. To really relay my argument to my chosen audience, I needed to make my comic clear and concise. With the help of Photoshop and prior knowledge, I could do so however not before I had some help from my peers. With the help of my peers, I could narrow down my audience, select the character for my comic and select some specific phrases that would help convey my message or argument. While making this comic I made sure to embolden everything I could to show the magnitude of the situation at the time. During the dialog, things may appear to be static, however during times of excitement, I used empowering speech bubbles to show the excitement of the situation. This was critical in making this comic for it provided something for the audience that I could not deliver with just writing and essay. I had originally wanted to do a podcast, however I realized my strengths lie within Photoshop for I used to do graphic design for different clients in the past. It did not take long for me to start editing my scenes and before I knew it, I was almost complete!
For future classes, I really want to use the close reading skills and research skills that I had learned in this class. I feel like these two skills will be the most important and the most used skills to really excel in my other classes. Also, this class has also changed my views and approaches to writing. This is because I now see every article or essay not as a whole, but as pieces that contribute to a whole. This means I tend to analyze individual pieces first, which helps me understand the main idea a lot better. I as a writer have evolved into a critical thinker. Due to this class, I know critically analyze information that is presented to me for I know that without critically thinking about it, I would be only analyzing information that is on paper, instead of trying to find the true meaning behind the literature at hand.
Regarding the goals that I had set for myself in the beginning of the semester, I feel like I have met them. I have achieved an amazing understanding of the topics discussed in class and have improved my essay writing skills. I have achieved an understanding my showing that I can write the essays with relative knowledge of my topic. This could not be possible without the help of my professor and without the help of my peers. They have been very outgoing and well spoken, which really helped enrich the learning experience. I will be recommending this course to anyone who needs it for their career path and will tell them to really listen to what the professor says for it will be very helpful to them when they are taking more rigorous courses.