Mid-Term Reflection
Topic and Instructions:
We have made it
half way through our journey together (I can hardly believe it!). It
is a good time to stop and take a break. It is a good time to think
about where we’ve been and what we’ve done, where we are and
what we are doing, where we are going and what we will do.
Topic:
In this writing class, what have you learned?
What do you believe you still need to work on more?
How/can you use what you have learned in other contexts?
I have two requests
as you write:
1) Please write something substantial and well-considered (roughly 350-500
words).
2) Please refer to and point directly to pieces of writing you have
done.
Debra's Mid-Term
Reflections:
In this class, so
far, I have practiced my writing skills continuously with the process
and free writing journals. I have found that this practice and thinking
of a topic to write my free writing journals about has helped me with
my brainstorming problem and my writer's block. I also get great ideas
for my novel, mentioned in previous assignments, while I'm writing these
journals. The ideas do not always have anything to do with the journal
topic at all, but I find that while my creative juices are flowing for
the journals that I get the same affect as right before you go to bed
when you get all those great ideas but don't want to get out of bed
to write them down. Of coarse then, in the morning, you can't remember
what you were thinking the night before. I just hate it when that happens.
The wonderful thing about thinking of these things while writing the
journals instead is that I already have out paper, I already have out
pencil, and the thought doesn't get away from me before I write it down.
That has truly helped me.
However, I still
need to work on expanding my explanations and descriptions. Another
thing that I am still struggling with and have been for a very long
time is punctuation. The way I tell if something is punctuated correctly
is I say it out loud and where there's a breath I put in a comma or
apostrophe. I used to think that this was a fool-proof way of doing
this, but I have found that things are not always correct written the
way they sound when spoken. One reason for this is that when I speak
in real life I often use improper conjugations that change the way a
sentence is arranged. This throws off my writing a bit. I need to work
on knowing from knowledge what goes where so I don't have to worry about
whether or not my spoken language is correct.
I have learned a
great deal about the power of description. I have been able to apply
this usefully already by going back and adding several powerful scenes
in my book. I went back and read it after making these additions and
it improved the flow and texture of the novel immensely. I also put
to practical use the thinking from the audience's point of view method
that we learned. It seems like such a simple tip, but, in the past,
I have always written for myself and so never really thought of it.
Before we were taught this I never had anyone read my book to make suggestions
so I never knew that I was using mixed metaphors that only I and my
best friend understood. Now I actually try to become someone else to
write. This also gives me a fresh new perspective for even more story
ideas. Those are my practical applications for these skills outside
of this class. I hope to learn much more that I can apply later on as
well.
Peter's Mid-Term
Reflection
This class this
year has done so much for me. But the main thing that this class has
done for me is help develop a new writing sense. As I have written essays
and have gotten peer responses back from others, I have learned more
on how to think as I write. I have trouble so many times with just writing
what is on my mind, but I never come to the realization that to others,
it makes absolutely no sense, or it does not have a clear point. One
essay that helped in this aspect was the Reader and Writers essay. As
I read my peers suggestions on what they liked to read, it became the
beginning of a new thought process I was to go through. Another essay
that helped in developing this writer sense was our family stories.
As I finished "Two Pole," my paper was critiqued and responded
to by my peers. This was probably one of the most influential essay's
that we wrote. Thinking of the story was fairly easy, but it became
a little more difficult when we were forced to show and not tell what
we wanted to get across. As I adjusted my paper according to the need
of my peers, I began to notice that my point was a little more clear
and I attracted my audience a little better. I have not even come close
to being perfect, but I still have so much more to learn. The main thing
that I have to continue to learn is how to think of a way to attract
my audience and also to narrow my audience down. In my proverb paper,
"Hope for the Best, but Prepare for the Worst", I was informed
that my audience was too broad. This is a huge problem that can be easily
fixed, I just have to think about the exact audience I am trying to
reach. All of these things I have learned, I plan to use in every paper
that I write, whether it is a letter to a friend or a petition for a
specific audience. Even the little things, like to make sure my quotation
marks are after the period, I will use to further advance my writing
skills in days to come. I believe that writing only gets better when
you practice, and that's why I think that we are all collectively getting
better as a class in our writing ablilities.
Anessa's Mid-Term
Reflection
This was a great
writing class. It was not what I expected, but it was very intresting.
When I went to talk to a counselor in the Woman's Center, she had told
me that this was an intensive writing course. To me that meant a ton
of writing assignments. I was glad to see it was on the computer. It
was very intresting to use the Moo. I enjoyed posting my writings, reading
my classmates, and the peer response.
In this class I've learned that it takes revision after revision to
come up with a wonderful paper. That I should not be hard on myself
in the first writing I do. It is more like the free writing we did.
This , free writing, was a great new tool. I can not recall having done
that in the past as a way of preparation to write a paper. This was
definitely a gift. It has helped in other areas of study as well. In
the class I also learned not to be afraid. Just put it on paper in a
rough form and then polish it over and over. I also got to go back and
get a short refresher course on punctiation and sentence structre.
This is also still
my weak point. I need to continually go over and practice sentence structure
and puncuation. I would like to use the semi-colon right and more, the
hypen, and the colon. I also need to learn more about writing papers.
How to come in with the strong introduction, a supportive body, and
a great closing to wrap the paper all together. I need to learn to be
descriptive in all my writings. I believe this will help the reader
get a much clearer picture or see my point in a much better light. In
order to be good at description, I think, a bigger variety of words.
This will also help to enhance my writing skills.
As I stated before, I use the free writing to do other assignments.
In my Philosophy and Psychology classes I free write to get all the
information about the chapters we went over down and see what I need
to know and to see what it is I do know. When it is put down on paper,
for me, it helps me to absorb it better. Me free writing helps also
when you are preparing an essay to try and receive a scholarship. I
get what I want to say down and then I can go back and organize and
polish my thoughts up. It also can help when writing any form of letter
to a professional person. Just to put all thoughts, in order, on a paper
is hard to do. So I am glad to have learned this simple technique to
write important papers.