Learning About the SLO's and MWA 1

When I came to class and heard that we would be working on a large writing assignment so early on in the semester I have to say I was not initially thrilled. Coming just out of my high school AP class where we wrote essays almost everyday like clockwork it was not exciting to hear in the least. However when I heard we would be working with different writing styles and genres I got a little interested. And it was actually exciting to hear that our first assignment would be a website.I loved making websites and blogs, so this was going to be a fun assignment for me. On top of that we got to pick our topic, which made the assignment feel even more enjoyable to me. As I felt I could turn in a much better final product when it was something I really enjoyed doing. Overall I was just pumped to start out my first semester of collage with such a fun and interesting assignment.

I remember this assignment specifically because it was my first time being introduced to peer review, or SLO B (outcome B). I am not social in the slightest and have a hard time communicating ideas with others who I am unfamiliar with. So the idea of working on peer review honestly worried me.Heck i even have a hard time just talking on the phone. But I persevered and figured I would see what it was like. Little did I know how much it would honestly impact my writing and how much it would improve it. i'm fine with taking criticism, but i'm always very conscious of my writing and honestly don't like sharing it with others. So when I first turned over my website to some of my classmates to look at I was a little apprehensive. I came to learn that it was actually really fun. Some of the feedback i got from my classmates was increadbly helpful and were ideas that I had never thought to improve. For example, for this assignment specifically I really hadn't thought about how my writing appeared to someone who had no experience with the topic and no background knowledge of it. I know what i'm writing about, but when trying to explain it to someone who has no idea about that topic I struggled a lot. It was also helpful to see what others thought about design, flow and too help me proofread since grammar is one of my weaker subjects.Getting some of that feedback really improved my writing and I would say led me to getting a better grade.

I wanted to add in a few screenshots of what my website looked like and some of the graphics, since I thought it came out very well. I incorporated a lot of design elements and enjoyed the project and I may even use it for future endeavors as an actual video game blog.

Before this assignment I have to say that my drafting and revising was honestly pretty poor. I would usually look over it once, change maybe a sentence or two and then send it off for grading. After doing this peer review (SLO B) I have since learned this is not the case. Looking to others for advice and ideas for your writing is such a powerful tool and one I probbaly would never have used by myself. Writing is not just sitting by myself in my room typing away. Writing is a form of communication, and it requires others to really be effective. This is just one of many things I've learned from this class, but i think it's one of my most important takeaways. From now on I will always take advantage of using this kind of review, no matter what i'm writing or working on as I believe it can help me to improve even more.

The Second MWA and the Power of Refection

By the time the second MWA rolled around I was excited to see what other kinds of writing we would be doing and was relatively intrigued to find that it was a memoir. Now I like to write fiction, but had never written any kind of memoir before, and especially not about my experiences with literacy. This assignment taught me quite a bit I feel as it was the first writing assignment i've had in a while that actually gave me trouble. I struggled a lot with ideas for the assignment, as I kept getting stuck on certain aspects of the prompt. I know I struggled a lot with finding some kind of problem and resolution, due to the fact that I had always had a good relationship with literacy and never really encountered any problems. I remember writing it at least 3 times, all different ways only to start over each time. I was pretty frustrated after a few times, and was just overall unhappy with my work. This is where SLO A, rhetorical situation really came into play for me. In order to better understand how to write my memoir I decided to really look at my situation in order to derive a better plan as to how to approach it. About a day before class I was able to create something I was finally happy with and take it to class. I was actually pretty nervous going into peer review (SLO B) as I was still not really sure if my writing was good, if it made sense etc. I wasn't even sure if I had hit the prompt honestly. But after having some of my classmates look over it and give me some pointers I learned that I was just being overly critical of myself, and that according to some of them it was actually petty good. It gave me back some drive and confidence to keep editing and refining it and overall I think it cam out pretty well considering memoir is one of my weaker genres of writing.

Overall even though this assignment was probbaly my least favorite, I think it is the one I learned the most from. One thing I will defiantly take away from this is to not be so overly critical of my own writing and to really utilize the resources around me to help me refine it. Without some sort of peer review I probbaly would have just been more frustrated and turned in a less then satisfactory product, which is not the resolution I really wanted. I also started to learn how to really use the rhetorical situation to my advantage here. That is something I think I will absolutely use in future writing and in other classes as understanding the rhetorical situation can really help me not only figure out how to write a piece but how to make it better.

As I wrote this MWA 2 i had a lot of parts in my essay that I really liked. Although I think my opening paragraph was my favorite. I feel like I really captured the emotion of the MWA and really set the stage for the way that the rest of the paper would unfold. Personal writing like this is something i'm just not particularly experienced with, nor is it something I particularly enjoy. Which makes me like some aspects of this paper even more. Here is my opening paragraph from my essay as an example of it, as it felt it was fairly strong:


"When I was younger living in my small, one story, middle class New Mexican home far before the advent of video games and the internet I had one thing I loved to do more then anything: read. Nearly everyday I had my nose buried in some kind of book, one probably “too old” for me to be reading. Reading came naturally to me, and before my sister could even walk I was able to read far above my level. I partially blame my mother for this, as she was a collector ( near hoarder) of books. She could finish massive books in less than a week  that I had seen others chip away at for months. I would read whatever she left for me to look at ; I wasn't picky about the genre. Fantasy would eventually grow to become my favorite, but at the time it really didn’t matter to me. I would read anything I could, sucking up information like a tiny sponge. Reading was just a part of my household, and to a greater extent my life. A part that was so deeply woven in my life that I don’t think I would even be myself without it."

MWA 3, the One I Liked the Best

"I get to write a short story for an actual assignment"? was something I never thought I would be saying to myself, but was more then happy to accept as we started to work on MWA 3. I absolutely loved the premise of the assignment where we had to choose a creepy image and then write a story based off it. Now not only do I love writing fiction but I love horror as well. I love horror movies and spend hours a week listening to scary stories on the internet, so I can't say I was sitting with a lack of ideas. There was a lot of what I would think would be typical scary images, like little girls and strange looking clowns. But I decided to go with the picture below, which is of some kind of cave opening. I think cave horror stories are interesting because there's so much you can do with them, as the mystery of the unknown is always a fun tool to play with in horror writing. So I got my cave picture and sat down to start working on it right away, since honestly I was pretty excited for it.

It was mostly a fun write for me. It came very smoothly I didn't feel like I hit too many issues with it until I got to the ending of it. I wanted the story to primarily be about a boy getting lost in this mysterious cave, only for the perspective to switch at the end to see that the narrator is actually someone else telling the story of the cave to a friend. I liked the dynamic of it, but I struggled for a long time with this. I wanted the initial part of the story to be very personal with lots of emphasis about how the main character feels in this situation so naturally I wanted it to be in first person. However when the perspective switched at the end I also wanted it in first person, so it was very awkward to read. When I put the first part in third person it didn't really work either, as it sort of gave away the end. I ended up going with first person to start with then third person, but even then i thought it was awkward. peer review (SLO B) was really important here, as i'm pretty bad at editing my own fiction. I really needed a lot of eyes to look at my MWA to help me out with editing it. I was happy to see that a lot of my classmates really liked the perspective switch and thought it was an effective tactic even though I thought it was a little awkward still.

This was probbaly the first assignment where I really utilized SLO F, reflection. I like fiction writing and I want to actually improve my skills at it. Eventually I would even like to be publishing my own fiction novels. So when I was writing my reflection rather then looking at it like another little filler assignment I actually took it to heart. using my own feedback and feedback from my classmates to write my reflection and seriously look at my own work. This is something like I said that i'm not good at and it's something I really want to work on. Being able to look back at my own work and identify errors and places to improve myself ins such an important skills not just for the rest of my classes but for my work, and my hobbies. I work a lot with writing in my office and being able to reflect over previous work to improve future work is so important. As my quality of writing is one of the things my boss is most impressed about at my job. It's the same with my hobbies, as I write fiction for fun a lot. I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing skills because I enjoy it so much. I found that is is not only easier then it looks but fun as well, as I can take a piece of writing and figure out how to make it better and how to improve my writing for the future.

MWA 4 and Actually Planning a Paper

The entire unit surrounding MWA 4 was actually pretty fun for me. Analysis is one of my favorite kinds of writing. I don't know why, but it's always been one I've enjoyed and came rather naturally to me.I was even more pumped when I saw we got to pick our topic. I was gong to do a political speech or something much like our SWA 4, but I figured a lot of people would probably do that. So in an attempt to be different, I decided to to do an analysis of Zootopia. Because I liked the movie and I had some ideas about some good analysis for it I figured it would be a fun take on the assignment and was willing to give it a shot. What I didn't realize is how actually in depth and how much I had to take into account when writing this. I watched the movie multiple times and even then had to go back multiple times to really look at the rhetorical situation and truly analyze it.

With this MWA I feel like I really utilized SLO C writing as a process because there was so many ways that I could have written it, and so much information I could include.Starting with SWA 5 I really had to plan and carefully put information together. After deciding what topics I was going to discuss in SWA 5 what I did was watch the movie and begin pulling out scenes or dialogue that illustrated my point. I then had to figure out ways to describe those scenes in a way that was concise, yet informative and illustrated my point. Within those scenes I looked at all kinds of rhetoric and strategies. Tone, dictation, symbolism and parallels were just a few of things I really looked at, as well as appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos within the movie. One of my best points from my paper I feel was my ideas about why animals were chosen as the main characters of the movie, as it could have easily been a movie about human characters. My main proposal as to what that is is because by using animals it removes the preconceived biases that humans have within their own species, allowing for watchers to get a better grasp of the whole picture and observe difficult social situations. I thought it was a really awesome topic for a majority of my paper and overall really enjoyed writing about it.

I have a scattered mind, just because I like to think a lot. So doing assignments like this were i am more or less forced to streamline and organize my ideas in order to get through it are increadbly important. The more of them I do, the more normal it becomes for me to construct my writing in a more organized fashion. This is another thing i'm really going to take with me in the future as when it's structured and organized when i'm creating it, my writing is often much better and has a lot less wandering then I usually do. Writing as a process is also much more manageable then my usual writing tactic, which is just try to finish it as quickly as possible. Writing in a more organized fashion in chunks seems to not only improve the quality, but make it more enjoyable for me to write overall.

Takeaways From this Class

Overall considering this was my first collage English class I think it went very well. I was so nervous going into the class as I was always wondering if my writing skills would be anywhere near good enough to do well in the class. Not only was  wrong about that, but my writing drastically improved and got so much better while I was in this class. My grammar and conventions improved drastically, as well as my overall quality of my writing. And I enjoyed it.But there was just so much more i took away from this class then simple grammar rules, the things I learned in this class are things i will keep with me my entire life as I continue to write and improve.

Peer review ( SLO B) and how to utilize it is probbaly one of the more significant things I'll take away from this class. No matter what I do in my life my writing will be read and analyzed by others and not only do I have to learn how to take that criticism and work with it but I need to learn not to be so apprehensive about it, and that is something I will really take from this class. When doing my peer review it was a great time, fun even. and it was increadbly helpful to take constructive criticism from others and apply that to my work as i can't think of everything that could be changed myself sometimes. This especially helped me with my grammar and conventions as by looking at what my classmates changed in my writing I could look to improve those things myself in later assignments. Not only to work with the help, but to ask for it. This class was the first time I went to someone and asked "Hey, can you look at this for me?' My drive to improve overpowered my lack of communication skills, and I think teaching myself how powerful of a tool this can be is incredibly important for the continued improvement of my writing.

Rhetorical situation ( SLO A) is another aspect of this class I will always be considering in my writing now. There's so much that i didn't even realize to think about when writing something, and i didn't realize how helpful it can be to actually consider those things. For example the audience, or the context. While it may not be something I always actively think about it will be fantastic to utilize because i do so many different kinds of writing. So when i'm writing my blog posts versus writing a report for my job I'll make sure to look at all the aspects of the rhetorical situation in order to maximize the effectiveness of my writing.


Reflection (SLO F) is another aspect of this class I feel I will most defiantly utilize in the future and will improve my writing. Being able to look back at my own writing and not only identifying errors but being able to correct and improve them is  a skill that i have always wanted to develop. Because not only does it improve my writing but it simply makes me a better writer. Because the next time I write something i'm less likely to make the same mistake, and instead improve upon it.


Overall i learned that my writing, while good, has a long way to go. But the things i learned in this class will take it to a whole other level. Not only do I feel I have a better grasp of concepts like grammar, but I've learned useful skills that i will certainly take with me to future English classes and just future writing in general. A lot of the concepts I've learned in this class I applied to a recent paper for my Honers class, and received an excellent grade on it. Not only that, but got some very good compliments about how my paper was one of the best in the class. I hope the rest of my writing in the future can get such a positive reaction, and the things I learned in this class through the SLO's will certainly help me do that.