Essay 1 Reflection

Throughout the first half of this class I have learned a number of things about my writing, in terms of the style I write in, the methods I use in my writing, how to make my writing sound professional, and much more. As a writer, I have grown to see that I am capable of professionally writing, not just blabbing that sounds good. All in all, I am growing and understand myself as a writer with each day far more then I thought possible.

In my honest opinion for this essay, I felt as though it was really good in the first few drafts and then not really what I wanted as the process neared the end. In order to "improve" my paper I had to make my changes that I did not really agree with and I thought threw off the whole follow of my paper and it upset me but I did it in order to finish my paper and satisfy most of the requirements. So was the end product of the first essay to my liking and standards? No.

One thing that I have found to be of great use was the They Say, I Say book. In the beginning of the class I can surely say that I was not wanting to read the book, but as time has gone by I have seen that the templates are very useful. They are easy to use, they can fit into almost any context, they sound great but aren't overly complicated to understand, they just are all over helpful. I think that this book might continue to help me in the future and would be a great resource to look back on.

Another tool I found helpful was peer editing. Although some comments were of no help, like ones such as "It's a good piece of writing overall," others, such as Joe Brown's were very helpful and constructive. They helped me to see what I had failed to do and what was unnecessary. These were thinks that I had not noticed and really helped me develop my paper. Peer editing was a tool that I found to be useful and helpful if done with seriousness, intent, and done properly.

I have also come to notice that my writing, as far as what I originally talked about in My Writing Philosophy has yet to really change. I still write a lot, I still don't find my writing to be very fun to read, even if it is well thought out and sounds professional, and it doesn't always capture part of me besides my thoughts on the piece at hand. This may partly be because we don't ever really have these times of writing prompts or tasks. Most of the writing that we work on in class are fact and examination. We read the material, talk about our ideas, then express what we feel the writer is talking about and connect our ideas with them on paper. But it does make sense, considering that it is a writing/history class. Although I wish to develop my writing in the same ways I explained in my writing Philosophy, I do feel that there is reason to believe why I have not in fact improved on my standards.

Like I said, I do still wish to develop my writing according to my writing philosophy. It would be wonderful to me if I was able to captivate my reader into seeming and believing what I feel through my writing. I would love to be able to pull together a story in my writings not just present my opposition. So I do feel that my want for growth described in my writing philosophy continues to apply and I hope to be able to get the chance to work with it.

As far as Essay 1 goes, I do not feel like it I made any steps towards my want for progression in my writing abilities. I also do not think that it would have been appropriate, considering that Essay number one was supposed to be a factual and input argument, not an informative and input piece, which I had thought it would be. In conclusion, my first essay did not turn out how I wanted it to and I did not really progress in my writing goals, but I did find certain tools to be of great help.