Reflection on Open Letter Draft

AJC ajcann.wordpress.com, "Peer Review" 05/23/08 via Flickr, CC0 Public Domain

I reviewed Cynthia and Ann Emilie's Open Letters. In this post, I will mainly reflect on my peers' comments on my own draft of an open letter, in which  I will answer questions about my overall revision plan/process/and reflection.

1. Did you demonstrate an ability to think about your writing and yourself as a writer?

Personally, I believe I did. I talked about my writing/revising/planning, and how it has changed. I fell like I could elaborate more in this context, however, as I focused more on time management. As writing was the main focus of this class I should talk more about how my writing has transformed and include examples.

2. Did you provide analysis of your experiences, writing assignments, or concepts you have learned?

I did provide a brief analysis of my own experiences, but not much else in terms of analysis of concepts I learned or assignments I completed. My purpose was sort of unclear when I was writing the letter, but  these questions, as well as my peers' comments, are helping me to understand that I should focus more on how my writing has changed in this course through concepts learned and personal experiences in the course.

3. Did you provide concrete examples from your own writing?

No, unfortunately, I didn't include any concrete examples in my rough draft. I was unsure of where quotes or links would be necessary, but if I elaborate more on my writing and examples of course assignments, I think this placement will become much more clear.

4. Did you explain why you made certain choices and whether or not those choices were effective?

This, I believe I did well. I definitely talked about regrettable choices that I made, why I made those choices, and why they were regrettable. I think if I add this same level of explanation to choices I made in terms of writing and assignments, instead of just deadlines and time management, my letter has great potential.

Overall, I have a long way to go in the revision process, as my letter doesn't contain much evidence or analysis on the actual writing and course lessons that affected my writing style, on top of my process. I believe if I merely add more of this, the rest of my revisions will become easier and more local.

Draft of open letter

OpenIcons, "Letter" 04/01/13 via Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain

Thanks for taking the time to read the rough draft of my letter in advance. I am aware that I didn't add any evidence from my blog posts, I will definitely do that in my final draft. Other than that, please let me know what I can add to my letter to help it to serve its purpose, and what points I need to better touch on in order to effectively complete this project and receive a good grade. Essentially, I would really appreciate any comments that directly explain what I still need to do in order to address all of the questions/guidelines in the Project 4 guide. Here is my rough draft.

Reflecting More On My Writing Experiences

Buck, "The Future Next Exit" 07/15/09 via Flickr, CC0 Public Domain

In this post I touch more on my experience in this course, as well as how I think this course has helped me find myself as a writer and as a student.

1. The biggest challenges I faced in this course were finding ways to make time for the large amount of coursework demanded in this class. I could have probably completed the actual drafts/projects without much stress or many problems, honestly. It was the deadlines with 5 blog posts, 2 read/reply/reflects, and a rough draft due that I could not keep up. Not keeping up would get me even more stressed out, which would, in turn, cause me to get further and further behind. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand why the blog posts were assigned, and they did help me gain skills as a writer, I just personally couldn't always handle all that was assigned.

2. I learned that my time-management, writing, and editing skills were not as great as I thought they were before this class. Editing was something that I didn't even realize I struggled with, but when I would go to revise my pieces, I wouldn't even know where to start. Peer review definitely helped this issue, and I can now see that taking a fresh, outside perspective and analyzing my piece for my rhetorical situation can really help transform and polish a piece.

3. Each differing genre demands a writer to essentially reinvent themselves, while maintaining their own unique voice and style as a writer. In high school, there was never much chance to experiment with genres, to understand how to transform a single topic from a QRG to an explanation of a rhetorical analysis to a buzzfeed article. In fact, we really only focused on one genre at a time, if we even shifted away from rhetorical analysis all year. Learning about different genres, different settings for writing, helped to expand my variety and flexibility as a writer.

4. Even though this is the only writing/english course I need to complete in my major, the projects we did will be very helpful for my future as a student and ultimately a neuroscientist. I learned how to find relevant research in my topic, how to turn that research into a well-rounded paper for an audience to read (in many different genres), how to properly cite the piece, and how to revise a piece until it is essentially publishable in my field. All skills that will definitely come in handy as I do research in my field.

5. My most effective moment from this semester was Project 3. I completed most if not all of the blog posts, and actually understood how to work in a genre I was unfamiliar with. I started from scratch and used techniques from this class, such as analyzing my rhetorical situation, until I understood my genre, audience, context, and purpose, and wrote my piece as such. My grade for this project definitely reflected this, as I got an 87, the highest of all of my final drafts for this class.

6. My least effective moment from this semester was Project 1. I missed several blog posts, and didn't take much time to try to understand the genre of the QRG. Although, in my defense, I thought I understood it at the time. My QRG seemed fine to me, but I ended up with a D on my final draft, so the amount of effort I put in was adequately represented, I suppose.

Revisiting my writing process

Lim, Walter, "A Reminder to Slay the Procrastination Beast" 10/08/14 via Flickr, CC0 Public Domain

In this post, I plan to reflect on my writing process, or what I believed it to be at the beginning of the course, at least. In my first few blog posts I explained my technique as a writer (in terms of completing writing projects), as well as my "ideal" calendar of how I would manage my time in conjunction with this class and the homework assigned.

Needless to say, while I did have a general idea of myself as a writer, nothing went ideally, or even remotely as planned in terms of my plan for being successful in this class.

I would still call myself a sequential writer, although I have been getting better at learning to take time after finishing a piece to look it over and perform some revisions, especially after our peer review experiences as a class. I did not plan on procrastinating as much as I did, however. Usually I can start the school year/semester off strong, and gradually drift into bad habits of turning in late assignments, but right from the beginning of this class it seemed the course load was just too much on top of my other obligations to actually gradually complete assignments like I should have done. There were times that I REALLY tried to start the deadline before the day it was due, but work, other assignments, and my personal life would completely take over until suddenly it was 4:15 pm on a Saturday, and with none of my deadline completed I would have to leave to work from 5-1 am, praying I would get time on my break to complete everything. There were other weeks where nothing interfered except for my own anxiety, stressing myself out more and more with the deadline in the back of my mind, to the point where I pushed it to the last possible minute.

Still, I am, for the most part, proud of everything I turned in for this course. There wasn't a single final draft that I turned in that I thought I would do poorly on or that I didn't give my best, even though my grades don't really reflect that. If I were to continue using the same time management techniques for the next few years that I used this semester, I can not envision doing well in school or my future career, but I'm hoping I can use this semester as more of a learning experience, where I taught myself how hard things can be when you put them off. As for my writing style, I feel I'll always be someone who plans, writes, and revises as I go, all in one draft, but I feel I learned how/when other writing styles can be useful through this course.