My blog has complemented the formal writing I’ve done this semester by acting as a form of self-reflection and a tool I can use to expand on the things I learned after the completion of assignments. Unfortunately, metacognitive assignments did not help me get as much as I wanted to get out of the papers, because the problems and solutions I had with the papers were usually not applicable to all of them. For example, a difficulty I had with the Natural Science paper, such as organization and structuring, did not have the same solution to the Autoethnography or Social science papers because each paper has a unique form. Questioning the rhetoric of other forms of media reminded me, firstly, that rhetoric can be found everywhere, including places we typically wouldn’t expect, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and, secondly, at the core, it is always centered on persuasion.
One accomplishment I had was making an A on the Natural Science paper. I was surprised to see that I made a good grade on it because English was and still is my worst subject, and I expected to not do so well because of my history with the subject. I am aware was pessimistic outlook, but this class helped me have a little more confidence in my writing because it reminded me that analysis and my own thoughts are what is usually more important in this subject compared to other things. One weakness I had I had this term was developing a great, detailed thesis which included the topics I would cover in my body paragraphs. This was probably the worst weakness of mine because I wouldn’t start on papers until I had a perfect, detailed thesis, and usually, It was because I couldn’t figure out what my 3-5 body topics were going to be. After continuously running into the issue of not having a complete thesis for multiple papers, I decided to finally start creating outlines before I start all my papers, from here on out. Not having an outline and thinking about what to write has probably wasted more hours combined than me typing the paper. Being stuck in the beginning or middle of a paragraph is the worst part for me when it comes to writing. It makes me want to completely stop and come back to it some other time, which adds on to my problem with procrastination. Because of this large issue I have in writing, I have promised myself to create an outline before writing all my papers. The other benefits of having an outline is to make sure everything in the paper is cohesive, has structure, organization, and checks all the boxes of what is required in each paragraph.
The project I learned the most from was the Social Science Paper because I got below a B on it. I was surprised when I first saw the grade but, in all honesty, I really shouldn’t have been because It probably was a deserving grade for the effort, I put into it. Although I enjoyed the topic of the paper, I did poorly on it because I didn’t analyze enough of my sources and I included too many quotes. This was the paper that made me realized I need to drastically change the way I approach each essay. The paper did not feel cohesive at all compared to my Natural Science paper and that might have been because of the three poorly selected topics I chose to include in the paper. All these issues would have been avoided with a completed outline that would have guided me along as I wrote the paper, paragraph by paragraph.
The piece of writing I found the most interesting and enjoyable was the one I choose in my Humanities paper; this piece of writing was a music video called ATM by J.Cole. I found this paper to be the most enjoyable because of the freedoms we had with it. Although we had the restriction of situating the text in a theoretical context, we still had many freedoms including using our own interpretation of the writings. Additionally, the ability to choose any modern text was refreshing because we were primarily using scholarly sources for all the other papers.
My expectations for this class was that it was going to be very stressful and difficult because of my experience with English classes, and in the end, I was right, but it was more enjoyable than I thought and I did learn methods to improve my approach to writing.