Final Reflection

During this class, I have seen my writing go from purely opinions back with little evidence to opinions and facts supported by a lot of evidence. I feel like I am better at taking my ideas, and finding ways to support them. One patter in consistently saw in my writing is my strategy of planning before writing. I always sat down and wrote out all of my thoughts before writing so that I could organize them, and see which would fit and which wouldn't fit into my paper. I feel like my writing has gone from being just the typical five paragraph essay to being detailed and unique. I really dove into every topic, and I think it reflected in a lot of my writing. One thing I would still like to see change is my topic sentences. It took me a long time to remember to add topic sentences, but they really do make a difference.

One thing that I learned to do during this course is look at every angle of an idea and see how it was a possibility. I never really traveled out of my comfort zone when it came to viewing opposing views, but this class taught me that it is okay to do that. I think that the paper that best reflects my personal growth is the last paper, the persuasive paper, that I just wrote, because it shows how my writing has changed over the course of this semester.

I feel like I learned how to incorporate logos, pathos, and ethos into my writing to make it better and more appealing to all types of readers. I started each paper by figuring out who my audience is outside of my classmates so that I was more effective in my papers. I also learned how to shape my tone so that it matched the subject matter of my paper, and all of these things combined really helped me create good papers that met all of the criteria.

The most important thing that I have learned from this course is how to take an idea, turn it into a question or topic, look at all angles of the idea, incorporate all viewpoints into my writing, and put it all together to make a strong point. I like how open the class was for discussion. I felt like you created an environment that had room for all kinds of view points. I originally came into the class hating group discussions and peer reviews, but after this semester, I learned how important teamwork is, and how it can help shape your views and writing style. I really enjoyed this class, and I'm sad it had to end.

Persuasive Paper Reflection

Through the process of writing the persuasive paper, I learned a lot of strategies to help me read and identify credible sources that would aid me in my research. I learned how to organize my thoughts and make them flow together in a logical way so that every point that I wanted to make was hit. One thing that I learned about myself as a writer is that if I break the paper down into paragraphs and do a paragraph a day, my paper comes out more organized, and I pay closer attention to details. As a student, this paper helped me learn how to prioritize my time better, and I learned how to organize my writing in a logical way.

During this assignment, I struggled with portraying all that I wanted to say without going into a lot of unnecessary details. I had so much that I wanted to say, and it was hard for me to break it down into simpler terms and pick out the main points from each idea. When I caught myself going into too much unnecessary detail, I allowed myself to write the paragraph how I would say it if I were telling it to a classmate or family member. Then I went back and cut out the "fluff", highlighted the main points, and summarized them in a shorter, more condensed version. This helped me get all of my thoughts out on papers so that I didn't feel like I was missing something.

Through this writing process, I really dug deep into the facts and opinions that I found through my research, and I tied them into my own feelings and beliefs, so that I could strengthen my credibility with the quotes and facts from other people. I looked into other questions along the way that popped into my head, and I think that it helped me come to a better solution in my mind than I had originally started out with. When I found a source, I analyzed it, and found how it would help my argument, and then I incorporated it into my evidence as persuasion. I felt like I had a harder time when it came to picking a side, because I went into this knowing what my personal thoughts were, but the opposing views were very convincing, and they all made sense. In the end, I had to ask myself, "What would you do in this particular situation to address the problem?" In other words, would I let my adopted child meet their biological parents or not? By doing this, I was able to look at it from a personal level, while also keeping the opposing views in the back of my mind. I really enjoyed this assignment, and persuasive writing is one of my favorite types of writing now.