At the start of every assignment, it was difficult to identify the major themes as there are always many. It is never easy to start an essay, however considering the audience is a beneficial place to begin. The best writing is designed around the audience when a bond can be formed with the author. On every assignment, I embarked on a journey to connect with the audience of my essay. Exigence is key as it can define the author’s purpose and frame the essay around a relatable topic. The purpose of an essay can always reflect current events; to overcome my writer’s block, I would always parallel essay topics to current events.
Respice
Looking back, our first assignment was the Field Study. Honestly, as I was drafting my brochure, I learned that I didn’t know much about its design. All I knew was that the brochure was meant to grab the attention of my audience as quickly as possible. Furthermore, to reach my desired final draft, my first one had to be “shitty.” I revise each assignment paragraph by paragraph; thus, the first draft was initially a blank page with ideas that eventually developed into an informational and engaging brochure. During this process, peer reviews were extremely helpful since it allowed me to improve my first draft. My writing was not concise at first, because my thoughts would be scattered.
The most challenging assignment for me was the Rhetorical Analysis of a Research Paper. I had never read a scientific research paper, therefore this paper tested me beyond my comfort zone. When this assignment was given to the class, I received a similar paper for my history class which asked to examine various historical sources. The challenge was to complete the reading rather than actually write the paper. The day before the paper was due, I had to help my mom with laundry because I usually drive her. I knew that I could not miss the deadline for the paper, so I took my laptop with me and wrote the paper in the car while waiting for my mom to finish with laundry. I was glad this happened because I did not have any internet and all the references were downloaded to my computer. This limited any distractions because my only other option was to help my mom with laundry. I received an A on the paper, so now I have an ongoing joke with my mom that we should frequent the laundromat more often.
Prospice
Furthermore, every assignment has assisted me to accomplish the course objectives. I explored and analyzed, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. I had to fashion my Scientific Controversy Paper around various genres of text such as peer-reviewed articles, news sources, and social media. Moreover, I developed strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing. Writing multiple drafts of each assignment was a great call because it allowed me to realize the several facets of my essay that had to be improved. Constant revisions helped me focus on ideas and/or paragraphs that needed to be strengthened since I was able to pinpoint necessary improvements. The peer reviews were not only a great source of feedback, but it was an insightful tool to recognize new strategies being used by other writers. As a result, I was able to recognize and practice incorporating key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations, as well as, engage in the collaborative and social aspects of the writing processes. To add on, understanding and using print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences was an excellent strategy to combine my knowledge alongside the secondary sources from the library’s database. I composed texts that integrated my stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation. The practice of the systematic application of citation conventions was the cherry on top as the formats of my assignments were proper APA.
Adspice
In this class, I learned plenty. I have written rhetorical analysis papers and research papers before, yet the experience felt new. As a pre-medical student my goal one day, hopefully by my senior year in college, is to publish my very own research paper. The closest I have come to a publication was the collaborative assignment. Designing the publication itself was not a challenge because group work was divided equally among the design team. Finalizing the project with a strict deadline was extremely overwhelming, especially during finals week. Nonetheless, I was glad to step out of my comfort zone to fulfill my curiosity. There are numerous lessons I learned throughout the process, especially during the collaborative project. I have two suggestions to improve the outlook of this assignment for the future. One, the assignment should be mentioned earlier to future classes and each group (content, editing, and design) should strictly stick to their roles instead of each person trying to contribute something. The content should write, the editing group should edit, and the design group should collect all the content to form a final publication. The second suggestion is that a person from each group should be in a smaller group. A student from the content, editing, and design groups should be placed together to form a smaller group of three. This way one person can complete each role and complete specific parts of the assignment which can simply be pasted into the overall publication. Nonetheless, if I had to this again, I would.
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
