How This Course Has Helped Me To Grow As A Writer
Prior to taking this writing course, I’ve always felt that my writing has remained stagnant. I relied heavily on the overuse of certain words and my voice became overshadowed by a lack of imagination. It was upon after the first major writing assignment in this course that made me realize just how far behind I was. Not that I am attempting to play a game of catch up, but I was “out of shape” in terms of writing from an analytical perspective. And not just analytical, but I was completely incapable of incorporating my own thoughts into my writing. I did not posses the tools offered to me by this class at that point. I simply read the text and voiced the author’s stance including my own deductions through reason. However, as the semester transitioned on, I began to realize how challenging and rewarding the course work would be and learned a valuable lesson from each assignment.
In the portfolio featured on my Academic Commons account, I comprised a series of assignments from the discussion board including the four major essays, the opinionated editorial, the visual essay, the critical analysis, and of course the self assessment in order to show the changes in my style of writing, my thoughts and technique. I first began to see my struggle with forming a cohesive body of writing from an article on the discussion post titled, “There is No Right Way To Mourn – The ‘Grief Police’ Wield Lamentable Shaming Tactic“– By Sian Beilock, featured on The New York Times website. I literally made a bullet point list, extracting what I believed to be the exigency, genre, audience, and tone. Even my own thoughts seemed like an afterthought. The way I built this answer is in of no way fit to be called good writing. Every paragraph seemed to posses its own idea, fluttering away like a free bird. I did not know how to unify the ideas into one jointed short essay. As I reread the exigency portion I noticed that though I addressed it, I veered off into a tangent about the author’s message and forgot about my own.
With the next assignment, I was to create an opinionated editorial piece, speaking on a topic that interested me. Like the previous assignment on the discussion board, it was only through reflection and revision that I could see where I went wrong in my first attempt at a final submission. Though I presented a number of sources from which I constructed my thesis and effectively blended them into the paragraphs, I somehow managed to forget to include my own opinion in an opinionated editorial! I had no stance in my writing and my voice was no where to be found. This stood out to me more than the mistakes in the previous assignment. As I progressed into the course, I knew that this inner conflict would need to be addressed through practice and revision. After reaching out to the professor, asking for another chance to revise, the changes I made were very noticeable. I knew I had to put forth more effort into strengthening my thesis with my own words rather than the author’s, especially in terms of an op-ed.
In the end, the revisions I made to the op-ed paid off and the experience made me understand what I was lacking as a writer. Not just the focus, but the courage to express my inner thoughts and provide vulnerability in my work. It seems that I might sometimes use my writing to disguise how I really feel. Some of my past tactics have been to use fancy words that bend a simple explanation into a complexity of sorts. I could have just been precise and to the point, which brings me to the visual essay. This assignment was something exciting, new and nothing like any of the other course work I have done in my other classes. At first I was surprised we were asked to create a visual piece of rhetoric, I mean, I thought this was a writing course! Jokes aside, I found this assignment flexible and creative, and it did not ask the impossible. Though it was not a requirement for the visual essay to correlate to the op-ed, I felt overwhelmed about the topic and gave into the idea.
The only times I have ever manipulated images were to make collages. The entire process of creating a meme was new to me, but reminded me of an essay. Like writing an essay, there needs to be structure, thoughts represented, and the exigency should be clear. Based on the feed back of my peers, I got the sense that my meme was clear and my audience was able to grasp the concept. However for the essay portion of the visual essay, I was advised to think more on the hidden messages in my meme and to reflect on them within my writing. A particular quote from a peer review, “I think the way you organized who your audience is, is a bit diorderly. From my understanding you made it relevant to three subgroups of people: tourists/outsiders, NYC residents, and NYC politicians. What you want from each of these is slightly different though their reactions are bound to barely nearly the same. I think you should explain a little bit more about how their practical responses will should diff,”, made me realize that I didn’t know what I wanted from my audience. I established my purpose, set the tone, but yet still lacked the key components to writing a great piece of literature.
The visual essay made me realize that I had to set a practical goal of providing a deeper analysis and to try my best at seeing the bigger picture. I needed to learn how to discipline myself, setting new goals after the completion of one. Instead of just analyzing text and providing a response, I had to overcome the hurdle of infusing my own thoughts into my work. Not just adding my thoughts, but to add textual evidence as grounds of reason. The smaller assignments on the discussion board which I chose to feature on my portfolio all reflect some minor to obvious changes I have made throughout the course of the semester.
The remaining discussion posts that are in the portfolio, “The Power Of Language“, “Black Panther Didn’t Do Justice“, “Fantasy Shouldn’t Be Reality“, and “Anger Is The First Step To Making A Giant Leap“, all reflect my progression during this writing course. With each passing assignment, the amount of growth that I saw stupefied me for some moments. And it was not just the growth but the mistakes as well. Even as I made progress and developed new skills, I still saw many areas I could improve upon. In my response “The Power Of Language”, I managed to find a way to relate a personal experience to the article and my audience. As I learned this semester, the three major ways any author may appeal to their audience through their writing is through logos, using logic or reason, ethos, the credibility of the author and pathos, creating an emotional response by seeking out empathy and emotion.
By the time I wrote “Black Panther Didn’t Do Justice”, writing began to take on a different nature, seeming effortless at times. I began my response to this assignment with a memory in regards to the article and film, Black Panther and jumped head first into developing my thesis. I then connected my perspective with the authors and drew out specific evidence from the text that supported us both. Now when I am reading any form of writing, I check for the genre and exigency of the piece. I probably cannot begin to count the number of opinionated editorials that I must have mistaken in the past for credible and scholarly sources of only facts. I have learned to identify different types of rhetoric, how they are applied and the appropriate language they need in order to function as a composed body of writing.
The last two discussion posts, “Fantasy Shouldn’t Be Reality”, and “Anger Is The First Step To Making A Giant Leap”, reflect what I believe to be amongst the best writing that I have done all semester. And though I am no Edgar Allan Poe, I do believe I have grown more this semester that I ever have. The quality of the advice from my peers, my professor and others whom have read my writing, have all helped to transform my insecure and tactless ways into something worth keeping. These two discussion posts introduced me into a new way of analyzing data because their exigency were defined by music and emotions. I had to take a moment to admire Hook’s knowledge of Beyoncé’s Lemonade album, and finding a way to connect it to current issues pertaining to the anger of African American women in society.
The way Hook formulates a well fitted argument, ever so gently leading the audience to a looking glass. I say this because the author did such a fantastic job hooking me with bright examples in the album and describing how strength can be harnessed from anger. If I had to read this article at the beginning of the semester, I am confident that not only would I have missed the exigency, but I would not have been able to return an analysis worthy of the article. In addition, I have never read such a strongly structured and centered argument as I did in Audre Lorde’s speech, “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding To Racism”. Her speech made me take some mental notes on how to present myself in a credible manner. The way she was able to make bullet points, each one reinforcing the drive for her speech showed different way as to how strategy is applied. I wanted to emanate her, so I also added some bullet points under my response, reflecting on how much I grew as a writer.
I purposely saved discussing the critical analysis portion of this portfolio because I need to make a confession. As mentioned on my “Critical Analysis: The Process” page, I made a mistake with this assignment. I did not follow the instructions accordingly and my lack of attention caused my writing to suffer. I feel as though this assignment came with the most valuable lesson. If I cannot listen and follow what an assignment asks for, then I am failing at the very first hurdle of becoming a better writer. It was after reading my first critical analysis essay where I decided that I wanted to make drastic edits, however remaining devoted to my original thesis. I eventually came across an image on the Forbes website which I found to be very compelling. I knew I could connect this image to my thesis as well as the author’s stance. And though I originally wanted to only focus on the image, I felt that with the addition of the research done by the author, her opinion would work well with my deductions.
This writing course has been such a blast and an unforgettable experience! I have taken so much away and have become a stronger writer as a result. I am grateful for the experience with my peers, writing, and professor. If there is anything that I have gained besides writing techniques and knowledge, it is to assert myself and to always be ready for a challenge.
