Unit Reflection and Response
1. Include the link to your blog here: https://poyin.home.blog/
2. Which of your pieces was the most challenging to write? Give three reasons and explain.
I think that the piece that was the most challenging to write for me was the descriptive essay. I had never tried writing something in such detail alongside using figurative language and rhetorical devices. It didn’t really come as naturally for me as I was writing the story just because I don’t usually talk like that or have had any experience writing anything like that. I was so focused on making it sound like I knew what I was doing or that I was good at writing by putting bigger words in and trying to use more complex terms, but I think that by doing so it may have hindered the natural flow and the voice that the writing could have potentially had more of. Another reason that it was challenging was that I found it hard to even choose a story that I could make vivid and descriptive – there were quite a few stories that I wrestled with choosing to do for this writing, and I had no idea how to be able to pull it off in an Annie Dillard style. After a while of not being able to choose, I chose this story because I felt like because it was both a fairly recent memory and one that was unique as well, that it would be able to stand out and I would be able to recall the details more vividly. Lastly, it was pretty hard to incorporate different styles of figurative writing in. Annie Dillard is able to use such a variety of rhetorical devices in a subtle manner (that didn’t sound forced), and I wanted to be able to do that too, so it was hard to figure out where some devices would sound forced and where it wouldn’t. I feel like there are still some places where it may be a little bit forced, but I think that there are some spots where they worked. However, this was a challenge to be able to do.
3. Which of your pieces was the most enjoyable to write? Give three reasons and explain.
I really liked writing the novel review. It was completely unlike anything that I had written before and I think that it ended up being pretty good. One reason that I liked it was that I found a writing style that was able to perfectly encapsulate both my thoughts and informative ideas about a certain book. A review is something that I never thought I would write, but I think that I was able to combine my personal thoughts about a book with the bibliography of the book. Another reason was because, despite the guidelines on what we had to include in the review, ultimately I was able to have a lot of freedom in choosing what I was going to write still and how I would go about doing so in a creative, descriptive manner, allowing my own thoughts and voice to shine through in my writing. Lastly, I think that being able to learn a new style of writing is always something that can push my creativity and help me to grow as a writer, which I think that this assignment did. Even though it was something new to me and I had never done it before, it was something new that I was interested in writing and had a lot of fun doing.
4. What are your strengths and weaknesses as a writer? Explain.
I think that some of my weaknesses as a writer is that I am really indecisive and have a hard time brainstorming or starting to write something. It takes me a while to really be able to brainstorm a full list of ideas, then I overthink when trying to choose what to really write for the actual writing itself, and when I start to write, I usually have trouble figuring out how to start off a piece of writing creatively or interestingly enough that someone would want to continue reading the rest of my writing. However, I think that some of my strengths as a writer are that I am able to successfully communicate what I want to write to the audience and am clear about it. I also think that I know my limits as a writer and know what to do or not to do to help with my writing, which I know can be a strength. If something is challenging, I can apply what I learned previously or can try something new without a lot of hesitation, and when writing something more simple I can take it to another level and make it better.
5. What have you done to develop your strengths and minimize your weaknesses as a writer? How successful do you feel you have been? Explain.
I think that I’ve developed my strengths by trying different writing styles in my writing and usually trying to read more to learn more about how I should or shouldn’t write. I also think that just by practicing more writing, whether it’s for a report for a class or creative writing for this College Writing class, I can develop my strengths more. I think also to minimize my weaknesses, practicing writing is a very effective way. By doing so I can be even more familiar with the writing process and learn to overthink less than the start and not end up wasting time trying to think of what I’m going to do.
6. What kind of future career or field of study are you considering? What kinds of writing might be important in this career or field? Explain, giving specific examples.
I’m considering going into either film. From my very limited experience, there are reports and proposals that go into creating a film – for example, writing down locations, plan, the symbolism of different shots or scenes, and explaining everything from our minds and putting them on paper. Another main thing is scripts, where we create scenes and stories and place them in a dialogue format, with cues for the emotions the characters feel, descriptions of the locations, and directions on how an actor should deliver a line. A lot of more descriptive writing would be used in this field of study.
7. What advice would you offer the College Writing teachers as they plan this unit for next year? What might be some additional pieces of writing to add and why? How was the timing and pacing? Did you receive enough feedback? Did you receive enough instruction and input so you knew how to do each assignment? You can make specific comments about specific assignments here. What did you like or not like and why? What would make this unit more student-friendly, provide more learning, or make it more interesting? Explain.
I found this class and the assignments that we did so far pretty interesting, so I don’t really have that much advice. They expanded my experience of writing in different styles and in different manners, and I found that I really enjoyed learning how to write different articles and writings. I also thought that the class was paced well because we had enough time given to us to complete writings and prepare for presentations. Some additional pieces of writing that I think would be fun would be something like articles (as in journalism-type articles), maybe scriptwriting or playwriting would be fun as well to explore those types of writings. The feedback given by both the teacher and my peers allowed me to improve on my writing and to learn to be more aware of different aspects of my writing that I had lacked before. Each assignment’s instructions were made pretty clear and I was able to know what was required for each assignment. I liked how there was enough freedom given for most of the assignments for us to be able to either write about ourselves and our experience or write about whatever we wanted to (for example the “What Makes You Come Alive” essay, the descriptive essay, or the CREDO performance) because it allowed us to explore more of our creativity come up with more unique ideas.
Link to full Unit Reflection: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FKX_-gPTsMOuhYO5vqFjxtWmbgYm9wXq8gDoHmo7els/edit?usp=sharing
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