When starting ENC 2135 I wasn’t a great writer. I had taken classes such as AP Literature and AP Language and Comprehension but other than that I didn't have much writing experience. I was a little nervous taking a class like this because I had heard how heavy writing is. Now ending my semester I would say I have learned a great amount whether it's about grammar, expanding my vocabulary, and the overall academic writing structure. Over this semester I have grown more confident in my essays and projects even outside of ENC 2135. I believe this is an extremely important class to take especially early in college to further one's educational foundation. My first project which was an annotated bibliography wasn't great and with some helpful feedback from my peers and professor I was able to improve and my investigative field essay was much better. I have carried the feedback I have been given all throughout my projects and I can proudly say I have improved tremendously from the start of the semester. Although I am personally not a fan of reading or writing I have found an appreciation for those who do because it is very complex at times.
ENC 2135 has taught me several things about writing techniques such as genres and rhetoric. Some of these lessons I have learned about writing are that genres aren’t just styles of texts, it's also the structure that it is in. Furthermore each genre has its own tone and style and I have learned throughout this course how to differentiate them and develop my own style of writing. This made me more aware of how to structure my work depending on whether I was writing an annotated bibliography, an investigative essay, or a multimodal project. Additionally I now better understand rhetoric including how authors use it to convey an argument whether it's with statistics, emotions, or persuasion. Now that I better understand rhetoric I can understand writing through the audience's perspective. When it comes to analyzing sources I can tell the difference between primary or secondary sources and can understand academic texts. Furthermore I would say that my overall writing style has changed significantly and overall has become easier to understand for my readers.
One of the more helpful assignments for me was the peer reviews and discussion leader assignments. I think that hearing feedback from my classmates made me want to work harder to impress them. Additionally being taught by my friends and classmates made me focus more on them to support and engage in their discussion. I also enhanced my research skills, particularly in how to find credible secondary sources and distinguish between scholarly work and non-scholarly material. More importantly, learning to evaluate reliability and integrate evidence into a paper made my writing both more informed and persuasive. Overall, ENC 2135 has made me a more confident and intentional writer. The strategies I learned about genres, rhetoric, the writing process, and research will support me in future classes and in any professional writing I do beyond college.