Learning Goals in the Present

When I reviewed my First Reflection, I felt like I’d managed to work much more on the social and collaborative goals as well as writing as a process. They're required by the course, yet it also helped that I went with the requirements rather than against them. The introduction to my First Project Final Draft was improved by applying advice from a classmate and Professor Tingle. Alexis Rizzo offered the following in her peer review of my Rough Draft (see text at right). Professor Tingle comment, reflected Alexis'. It can be found to your right. How could I ignore such advice? You'll see the resulting change in a snippet from my final draft here:

“This analysis aims to expose and examine these perceptions based on local data from interviews with Tucsonans foremost with secondary research to support. It’s my hope that this analysis improves knowledge about fibro and leads to solutions in the second portion of the project.”

The additional sentences about the purpose of my analysis and where I hope it leads help to frame the sections that follow. I’m happy that working with my peers and integrating their thoughtful feedback has gone so well. It’s made the goal I set for myself in my First Reflection about bettering the social-collaborative and process elements of my work feel that much closer to accomplished. It is a process.

As I've demonstrated in my First Reflection and Final Draft for Project One, rhetorical understanding was something I was already very comfortable with. The following is from my First Reflection in which I analyzed a poem I wrote to show my knowledge of that learning goal.

“Word choice also figured large in my decision making. While I can’t claim that all the words were deliberate and conscious choices, after reflecting on draft after draft, the diction as it’s settled on the page feels right over two years after the final draft. In the first line, the phrase “baby blue” appears. I felt that this brought across a youthfulness and even childishness. That choice is contrasted with the detail that his smock “yields just at the waist,” which implies concision in dress, and by extension, concision in the choices made by the man wearing the article of clothing.”

I think that this excerpt of analysis may give the reader an idea of how comfortable I am with rhetoric and conventions. And because of that ease, I still like my account of how the poem works and why it works is more effective. The same quote could also serve as evidence that I take a critical approach to thinking, reading, and composing. In the same analysis as the quotation, I mention that writing is about choices. In my experience, when quality thinking and reading align, quality writing becomes that much easier.

And that brings me to which Learning Goals were the greatest challenge for me during the Project One composition process. These more difficult outcomes are the same ones I set out to work on in my First Course Reflection: process and collaboration. Most of the feedback I receive from friends about what I write for myself - poems and short essays - falls into the “That’s great!” or “That’s really funny categories. As much as I enjoy an ego boost, I know that development in writing comes from considerate, thoughtful criticism far more than praise. My discomfort with sharing personal information during the process of collaborating on Project One isn’t something I can easily show in words. Unless I wrote the words squirm, anxiety, worry, uncertainty, and fear of judgement over and over. Composing Project One has helped reduce that discomfort a bit, and I hope to further reduce my squirming during the collaborative process for Project Two. Less squirming and more comfort is always a worthwhile goal. Project One alone has helped me strengthen my progress toward the collaborative and process learning goals, and I feel that sharing my writing in the future will be that much easier thanks to Project One in this class.

Forward, Forward

Changes take their time to seep in at my advanced, non traditional student age. Neither my writing nor how I view myself as a writer have shifted as yet. Writing, especially the writing I do on my own, is essentially solitary. The main activity where any changes might register is in the practice of writing more and about more varied topics. And hopefully more publications.

Themes that recur in my poetic output are the same now as a decade or so before: the confluence of music, visual art, and verse; the influence of Greek classics; traditional forms, like the sonnet; a severe outlook tempered by a serious sense of humor; and biographical poems that are autobiographical. More themes may crop up over time, and so might works in collaboration with visual artists. That said, the old themes will find new expression. Who would have asked Borges to cut it out with the labyrinths or Old English literature? He didn’t. He grew to sing the same songs more clearly, a worthy goal that is my own.