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."