Reflection

I think I have achieved the course learning objective because I see growth in my writing. One of the course objectives is to enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment. During the course, I completed an Op-Ed assignment that required a rougher draft and a final. During the final draft, I found myself free writing. Normally when I’m writing on a topic I have to take breaks to gather my thoughts but for this assignment, I was able to write as much as I can and circle back to edit. I recognized that a rough draft doesn’t require you to have all your ideas polished. I mainly focused on just allowing myself to think and transfer that over in my writing. I was able to measure my growth between last semester and this semester by observing how cohesive my writing is. What I mean by this is paying attention to how well my ideas flow together as one. Last semester, I struggled with getting ideas onto the paper but this semester I was able to stop overthinking and write freely. When revising I make sure I use transitioning words or when I’m switching ideas because it’ll help prepare the reader and myself for what’s coming ahead. I started to recognize how I struggled so much with getting ideas on the paper because I wanted everything to be perfect rather than just expressing my thoughts then making adjustments. I was also able to start using evidence to support my ideas after coming up with them. Another learning object is to strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources). Before writing a rough draft I would go look for sources that way my thinking process can be prompted by those sources. Having the sources already cited and deciding what quotes I would use to support my opinion helped me kill time. Before I would write and not be able to go find sources that supported my thinking. As of now, I’m able to find quotes and create a thought from there. Reading sources would cause my brain to think about how I would like to implement this quote in my writing. I would ask myself questions such as, do I want to argue against this quote or agree to this quote and that would help me understand what stance I’ll be having in my writing.

My perception of writing has changed over time because before I seen writing as pointless due to it just being opinionated. But now I see writing as very insightful because you’re always learning something whether it’s someone else’s opinion or fact-based. Writing can be seen as something that is done for self-expression, communication, and more. To circle back to my Op-Ed assignment I saw that as a way for me to finally talk about something meaningful and interesting to me vs a boring assignment where I have to talk about something that isn’t engaging to me. I see writing in numerous ways because it’s how you write that’ll draw attention. For example. an informative piece of writing vs argumentative writing. Informational writing can be seen as less engaging because it’s fact-based while argumentative writing involves your opinion, which can grab the reader’s attention. Throughout this semester the more I wrote the more I felt confident enough to write. Writing is a skill that you have to keep practicing to perfect. Not only does writing help you develop a better memory but it triggers your thinking because one simple idea can lead to another. This connects to my view that writing has tons of benefits but for me this semester my pen and paper have become an extension of my mind. My thoughts on how social media negatively affected society(Op-Ed Assignment) turned into a paper that others will read to understand my perspective. After completing this assignment writing has become a more often task done because it’s not just words it’s meaningful words with insight behind them.

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