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Welcome to the Writers' Studio!
First Reflection: Critically Thinking About Your Writing Journey Begins
I like myself as a writer and the voice I carry throughout my pieces. I have written throughout high school in both honors and AP courses. I have mainly dealt with argumentative, analysis, and research papers. The type of writing and length of my pieces has helped develop good sentence structuring and thesis writing. I started with writing for History and English classes that centered around proving a point through the use of documents or a book. Those experiences lend themselves to my research papers for science and AP Seminar. I have been told I am good at writing and coming up with how I want my paper to flow. Having a good vocabulary has allowed me to expand on ideas and lengthen them without too much repetition. This has been proven with earning a 3 on my AP Seminar essay and group presentation. Below is a screenshot of the brainstorming for one of the research papers. The sample shows how I brainstormed evidence which made it easier to incorporate in my papers. Also, the comment is from my teacher.
I have always received proficient grades on my papers, but through applying teacher comments and editing my writing has become more polished. I struggle the most to finish my writings and make sure the point or theme carries strong throughout the whole piece. I brainstorm using bullet points that have words, ideas, and citations I want to use in that paragraph. However, once I start a paragraph I get caught up in the ideas and normally finish that paragraph before brainstorming the next one. This normally leaves my papers with a disconnect. Which leaves me with more work at the end and most of the time it still does not flow right. As I had two different mindsets when writing the paragraphs. I want to work on having a solid brainstorm before writing. Which includes all paragraphs, evidence, and points I will use. Due to the disconnect, I feel my writing can have, because I write in chunks, self editing is not something I enjoy. As I feel like I am rewriting to bring it back to the thesis or main point. I want to strengthen how I self-edit by first starting with making myself accountable for a completed brainstorm. Also, I want to read everything aloud because how I read my writing is not always how it is on paper, which can just further disconnect my writing.
Second Reflection: Critically Thinking About Your Writing Journey Continues
Myself as a writer, writing has always been to get the job done and make sure everything on the rubric is in my paper. This style of writing has made me successful in analysis writing and argumentative writing. The chart to the right is a layout to a basic paper that students across the nation are taught. This layout is how most essays are expected to look like as well as be read like. This is how I was taught to write essays, and in turn this is the rubric that was used to make good essays. I talked about this structure in my first reflection. As I needed help with the conclusion as for the most part teachers spend ample time on the introduction and body paragraphs and leave the conclusion for us to finish. This style of writing is all I know and writing for this project changed my writing. As it added a new style to my writing.
Writing a piece that needs a strong pathos, was a challenge in the revisions part of the assignment. Writing with pathos in an academic setting was the hardest part for me as I tend to separate school and emotion as I am writing with a purpose to answer a prompt. However there was not a prompt so I struggled to drive deep into the subject in the beginning. Which is why much of the feedback I received said
“isolate the 1-3 most proximate or important causes.”
As I was too broad and trying to use the accessible data that would make an argument stand out. Instead of focusing on this being a letter. This original focus made my letter very formal and I struggled to make a personal connection. Which is why this comment made by a peer really helped me revise and work on the pathos that I was missing.
“In third paragraph, I would keep in mind this letter is not addressed to other workers in your position everyday, speak in a tone with words that the upper level management might understand ”
This comment along with the feedback on my draft from the professor really made me rethink my tone and analysis in my letter. The skill of tone was something I wanted to work on and these comments made me revise my word choice. I changed it to make it sound more personal and use the barista language that my audience of barista’s can most relate to. As I added words like peak and behind the bar, which I had originally thought did not belong in an academic writing. I plan to use the skills of tone and personal connection again in project 2. I think in order to add this new way of writing I first have to write what I am comfortable with, which is analysis and typical academic writing. Then my revision is to go back and try to add personal connections where I find formal words. As formal words are normally where I could add compassion and pathos to my writing as that is where the main point is found. Along with the personal connection being added to the essay I think this will help my conclusions as a conclusion sums everything up and leaves the reader with your main point you were trying to get across. I think the emotion will help me sum up the points as without emotion it is hard to make my point stand out. Because my point/argument would just be data with no soul to make the message heard.
Third Reflection: Understanding Your Journey and Setting Future Goals
I feel that my writing has changed over this course. Especially with knowing how to write with more of a presence of pathos and ethos. As well as a better understanding of the proofreading. The second project allowed me another chance to embrace and learn the pathos that comes out in writing in the first person. As most school writings are in third person and focus on research and its credibility you are proving. I think this chart is a great example of what you get out of each narrative. I have experience with second and third narrative as papers and letters are the main two types of writing I did.
I received feedback for the second project mainly centered around my writing structure missing parts. My ethos use was further developed, as Mr. Toweill commended my use of it in the intro and through the draft I submitted. I believe this shows progress as I improved on the relationship between my personal feelings and the data. This creates a stronger claim as I believe it shows the passion I have for the issue. I also received feedback from a classmate who commented on my use of quotes. They suggested that I should focus on paraphrasing, as my writing is a letter and should read more personally. I do not completely agree and was hard pressed to just get rid of my quotations. But they also said that paraphrasing would help the reader to retain my ideas better. I had never thought about it like this before. This made me go back through and see how paraphrasing would be, and they were right; not only did it flow better in areas but it was not as stiff. I left some of the quotes as this is a letter to a company, not a peer, but I appreciated a new way of looking at my writing, so the audience would not only feel the rhetorical devices but remember them, as I was speaking to them, not quoting things to them.
On top of gaining more insight on how to use feedback. I believe I got better at giving feedback. This is a screenshot of the first peer review and the grade and then under it is from the second peer review. In the first one I focused on how I would review a research paper, as I focused more on structure and if things were credible. I did not include how the audience would react or places that needed more ethos, to tie in their research to their personal experience. What I missed in the peer review, became what I missed in my second project as the second project had a greater focus on personal connection. I am happy that I was able to do a better job on the second peer review, which in turn helped me go over my draft and look for things that I saw other papers were missing.
As I continue through college I hope to take with me how to write in the first person and give constructive peer feedback. I will be in the school of nursing next spring and know that presentations and writing prompts are in my future. Presentations are a great way to express ethos and pathos with some logos to make it all make sense. I want to take with me the feedback on how to make the audience interested and connected in what I have to say by being persuasive and anecdotal. Along with helping me with presentations I believe that learning to write using more anecdotes will help in my career as a nurse. Communication using what happened, your opinion, and how the patient feels on the issue are all important for getting the right solution.
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