As someone who has never been the best at writing I’d say I have learned a few things from this class and have continued to improve my past writing skills. I find that the weekly assignments we have has forced me to remember all that I’ve learned week after week. Not just when there is an essay due and I have to summon all my past writing skills to appear just for it. I’d say that personally I still have a lot to overcome when it comes to talking openly during class and raising my hand as I never do this willingly. Furthermore although I have gotten better at free writing because of the in class exercises I still think I can get better at learning to think quicker about a topic and being able to put my thoughts into words at a faster pace as well.
When it comes to my groupmates I think they are both well developed writers who know what to put what they’re thinking into words. A concern I would present to my groupmates would be that Bill could add more details to his paragraphs at times. A way to do this would be to use more examples from texts to get a more narrow focus of the topic. A concern for Sabera would be to be more specific in her paragraphs at times. A way to do this would be to keep to a certain topic consistently.
-Brian Baigorria
So far in this course, I have definitely found a lot of growth as both a student and writer. Reading works that challenge me to learn about genres or time periods I am usually not interested in has brought a new intellectual experience into my life. In addition, the weekly online writing assignments push me to examine the text more closely, often causing me to inquire about the historical relations or underlying theme of a text. I find usually I do not read too much into stories, but looking at a deeper meaning of the writing as we do in this class gives me insight on what the author may be going towards. The class discussions we have also give me reason to think as others in my class bring up great point of views that I would have never imagined. I believe I can get better at centering my ideas to have a main topic as I feel like I’m often conflicted in my ideas.
I believe both of my group members always supply great points in the weekly writing assignments. However, if I were to have to choose something to critique I would suggest for Brian to sometimes word his sentences to be more clear and succinct, and for Bill to explain his supporting details more. Otherwise, I do believe that being in a group where I am often working with others’ opinions have been more of a help to me.
-Sabera Qazi
The writing of this course this semester has shifted the way I think about writing. I found a quote that appropriately summarizes how my thinking towards writing has changed: “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” Throughout my writings in this class, I saw writing as a way of expressing what I thought. I would think of something, and then write it down. That led me to summarize, and not analyze. But as I continued to see your comments on my papers telling me to “analyze and not summarize,” I noticed that writing should itself be my way of thinking, not just a means for expressing my thought. To improve my future writings, I feel that I need to actually, physically write my outlines on papers because that will allow me to divulge into my thoughts deeper. Another part that I felt was helpful was reading my peer papers. I feel that peer writings are designed to help the people whose paper is being written, but it didn’t turn out to be that way for me. It turned out to be that I learned a lot from reading other papers: I saw new ideas and a different perspective on the writings. I also found that writing an essay in as many sittings as possible is the best way to do it. I found that taking breaks and detaching myself from the essay for a while allows me to be flexible-making sure my mind isn’t stuck on just one idea.
-William Dayan