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.
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