Final Reflection
Throughout
the semester, I have worked on many different assignments and writing projects
that worked my mind in a different way. This class made me use my own ideas and
made me think of creative ways to present my papers. This class made me see
that writing projects are not papers, but works of art.
On
my first project, the photo essay, I argued that well-known and respected farms
we buy meats from are abusing their animals. I found statistics from
anti-animal cruelty website, and went out of my way to take pictures of well
taken care of animals from a nearby farm. This project made me go out of my way
to get the information I needed for my topic, and made me use creativity to
create a PowerPoint as my paper. No other class has ever made me do a paper
where I incorporated so many different features like pictures and structure.
The
second writing project, the visual and rhetorical analysis, was also different.
In college writing one, I did a rhetorical analysis on two magazine ads for
their rhetorical devices used to draw in potential consumers. The visual and
rhetorical analysis was a similar paper, but focused on a website. We were
supposed to look at the pictures and text, and analysis their rhetorical
devices. We also looked at how they work together. Linking the images to the
text and observing their relationship helped me think above and beyond what I
was used to. Every new topic I learned in school, I was never told to connect
with other topics. I like how this class crossed the line and did something
different.
For
the third writing project, the argument synthesis, took multiple sources and
required us to answer a prompt given to us. There was a lot of flexibility on
the prompt, but it was a little unclear. I decided to go my own way with how I
interpreted the prompt. I read all the sources and formed my argument off of
what had the most evidence from the text. The instructor encouraged us to write
our papers out of order, starting with the body paragraphs and ending with the
introduction and conclusion. I have never written a paper like this, so I was
very confused. I always wrote my papers with the intro first, but I liked the
change. I felt that my introduction was more accurate and my conclusion fit to
help frame my paper like a piece of artwork. I think I will continue to write
body paragraphs first to help my papers to be more unified in topic.
For
our last writing project, the researched argument synthesis, we were told to
pick a topic and narrow it down by our sources we find. We were told that we
must have six scholarly article sources and two books. We were told to do an
annotated bibliography before we did the paper. It was basically a shorter
version of the paper. I liked doing the annotated bibliography because when it
came time to write the paper, we already had all the information we needed to
introduce and quote the source. I will definitely do this for my future
research papers. It is an extra step but its worst it in the long run. The
paper was easy to write because it was structured the same as the argument
synthesis. I really enjoyed this assignment because it helped me learn what
sources to use and what to do with the data I have found.
I
have developed a lot through writing in this class. I have learned to be more
creative and learned to think outside the box. The peer- reviews and bookwork
helped me for writing my papers so I now understand the importance of small
assignments. I will no longer call it “busy work.”I would like to conclude by
saying I really enjoyed this class, and will be taking away many new skills and
tools I will utilize in my future classes.
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