My first semester in a college writing class has been rewarding, and challenging. I’ve learned more about my writing, and I’ve grown. I’ve demonstrated how I grew through writing the narrative essay, descriptive essay, and critical analysis essay. Writing the identity narrative required a lot of thought in order for me to get my ideas across effectively. I had to work on connecting some of my previous sentences or paragraphs to the following. I couldn’t see that I had to move my readers along between sentences or paragraphs, and I thought I was doing so effectively. To effectively help my audience follow what I was saying, I learned that briefly restating what I said earlier in other words, then moving on to my next idea was effective. For example in my identity narrative I stated, “ it’s always good to examine how imperfect you are before you go around judging another human being for their faults. Rather than judging them, it’s wise to compromise and meet at a point where answers will be given, and forgiveness and understanding released abundantly.”  In this example, I briefly refreshed my reader’s mind about judging a person. I could’ve been long winded and said “Judging another human being is unfair” after stating,” it’s always good to examine how imperfect you are before you go around judging another human being for their faults”. I used “rather” which is a predeterminer, and utilizing it, made me state my next idea to my audience after briefly stating what I explained earlier. After I learned how to move my readers along, I made sure to do this effectively in all my essays. I gained one extra strategy in my revision process. While writing, I learned to take a break, and come back to my writing and evaluate whether I effectively lead my audience to my next ideas, and claims.

Throughout the semester, I did my best to incorporate the rhetorical situations effectively. For my identity narrative I needed an instant or something that really impacted me and changed me. For motivation, I picked the moment when I met my dad at the airport, because it was a powerful moment. This moment made me grow and improve as a person. This moment served a huge purpose in my life because it made me a more merciful person. Hopefully it also made my audience understand the power of forgiveness as well. At first I was targeting a general audience, but as I kept writing, I wanted to target others who have a burdened heart who don’t forgive as easily, and I wanted to show them that forgiveness helps everyone feel better. Although my personal essay wasn’t a speech but rather an essay, I wanted my words to jump out at the readers. Because I wanted my words to resonate with my readers, I didn’t start with the moment in the beginning. I built up to the end which is when I met my father at the airport. I did this by sequencing the order of events in my essay in chronological order. My first paragraph sentence was “ I first remembered being lifted up with strong arms and put on broad shoulders.”, and my second paragraph’s sentence was “ I saw him again eleven years later in 2018”, and every paragraph after that had a topic sentence that was concentrated in the present. In this process of ordering the way events happened in my writing, I knew from past experience that I had to lead my audience to my next ideas effectively. Using chronological events prevented any chronological confusion for my audience.

While writing my narrative essay, I found that the protagonist in Kate Chopin’s “A Pair of Silk Stockings” really helped me in my writing process. The protagonist thought that she was going to spend the money that she surprisingly found in her pocket on her children, since she always put their needs in front of hers. But in the end before she knew it, she spent it on herself and in the end she found that she needs to take care of herself also. She taught me that sometimes it takes an unexpected moment to help you find yourself. I utilized this lesson in my essay. Before writing my essay, I didn’t know what topic to write about. Then I used the moment when my father appeared in my life and I was taught how to forgive. This moment was focusing on the someone else other than me, and I had to find a way to explain how this person and this moment made me grow. I learned that I wasn’t a merciless person after all.

Writing the descriptive essay this essay was also a journey where I struggled and progressed. I found that finding a way to generate my ideas, and fully describe a watch in my essay was not easy. At first I was unclear with what I had to prove to my audience and how to prove my claim. After engaging in the collaborative aspect of the writing process, both Professor Rodwell, and one of my classmates during peer reviewing time asked me what I wanted to get across. I found out that I had to tell and show how describing the watch shows the importance of time. Professor Rodwell gave me a suggestion that I have to describe the face of the watch, and this actually helped me show the importance of time through my description of the watch. From that time as I further progressed as a writer, I kept in my mind that I have to primarily let my audience know what my claim is before I move on.

In my descriptive essay, I was particularly motivated by the unusual design of the watch, and how the seconds of the watch flew by. The unique design of the watch made me want to observe the watch even more, and so I did, and this led to showing my audience why this watch mattered to me. I utilized an abundant number of descriptive words which I will elaborate more on later in this essay. My goal was to make my audience get the point I was making about the importance of time. At first I was targeting a general audience, but as I kept writing, I wanted to target people who take time for granted. I wanted to show people that time could never be won back. Although my personal essay wasn’t a speech but a descriptive essay, I didn’t only want to describe to my readers a design of a watch. I wanted my words to influence my readers and reverberate with them. Because I wanted to effectively get my point across about the importance of time, I used certain words that would influence my readers to visualize the watch. I used onomatopoeia when I referred to the beat of my heart. For example when I wrote “ Each tick tock moved with the boom boom of my heart beat ” I was aiming to make the reader feel the effect of the watch on me. As I progressed as a writer I learned that when describing an item in writing, you have to use your five senses, because it makes your descriptive essay powerful.

While writing the descriptive essay I went down the conventional route of using sensory details to develop my descriptive essay similar to the path Judy Davis embarked in “Ours Was a Dad”. While editing my essay, and incorporating my sensory detail, I wanted to do it as if  I was explaining something to my younger sibling. I tried to cover the who, what, where, how, and why of what I was speaking about in my essay while working towards the larger gist of my descriptive essay. I was having a hard time getting the point I wanted to get across to the audience across. Both Professor Rodwell, and one of my classmates asked me what I wanted to get across when we engaged in our collaborative writing process. I had to tell and show how describing the watch shows the importance of time. Professor Rodwell gave me a suggestion that I have to describe the face of the watch, and this actually helped me show the importance of time through my description of the watch. I progressed as a writer because I learned that I have to lay the blueprint for my audience by telling and showing my next steps in my writing.

Although I used the school’s database, and credible sources on google to research for appropriate sources to back up my claim, the Critical analysis was one of the hardest essays I’ve had to write this semester because it required a lot of deep analysis, and I had to argue my point. It’s always the norm to prove that students succeed academically when parents are involved even though teachers might also be involved academically. I wanted to prove that even if students don’t have familial involvement or parental involvement they can still succeed academically with the help of teachers. I was having a hard time introducing my counterclaim. I made a separate paragraph for it, but a transition word was missing. During peer review, one of my peers and Professor Rodwell helped me choose “ however ”. To showcase my progress in using transition words and discovering how to effectively guide my audience in my writing I created a presentation on how to effectively address your audience. I will provide this presentation in the presentation section of my e-portfolio.

In my critical analysis essay I did my best to incorporate the rhetorical situation. I argued that high school students don’t need familial involvement or parental involvement, because they can still succeed academically with the help of teachers. I was motivated by the hardworking students which I observed at the library, both adult and young adult who took advantage of the programs provided to the public by the library. I was also motivated by the hardworking students at the after school I observed, who took advantage of the homework hour to get their work done. I was targeting a general audience, and people in society who highly agree that only parental involvement helps a student succeed, and that with the absence of parental involvement, students would perish academically. I noticed that when I started the process of revising, editing, and laying out my critical analysis essay, I had a hard time explaining my claim and make my claim even stronger using my observations. As the semester progressed I learned that it was actually easy to use my observations to support my claim. For example, I observed “ a teen girl offer to write on the blackboard. I felt pride that she, and others in the [library program] room were taking advantage of the opportunities the public library gives to the public. That young girl who took advantage of the library programs to learn English is the epitome of someone who can succeed academically bereft parental involvement. She took charge, because she knew that if she didn’t do everything in her power to learn what was there to learn for the day, she would never reach her goal of becoming a fluent English speaker” I can use this observation to support my claim because, the girl didn’t have her  parents involved, but it is highly guaranteed that she was able to succeed academically because she took her own learning into her hands, and was concentrated. Prior to growing in the strategy of supporting my claims with my observation I found that I was actually thinking too hard. The superficial action I had to take was to just have my claims in mind primarily and try to support them with my observations, instead of having my observations and then trying to support them with my claims.

For the Critical Analysis essay I read a variety of literature during my writing process that were really helpful to me while I was writing my essay. I really took away from “ They Say/ I Say Chapter 7 So What? Who cares”, “They Say/ I Say Chapter 8”, and “Caught Between the Ages from Down to Earth Sociology” by William Van Dusen Wishard. After reading “They say/ I say chapter 7” I was granted the knowledge to share why what I’ve shared in my critical analysis essay matters, and how it may apply in the real world. Chapter 7 also told me that I had to target an intended group, or person who cares about my claim. I utilized chapter 7 because I discovered that as a writer, having my audience in mind primarily was essential in any type of writing, not just the critical analysis essay.  After reading “ They Say/ I Say chapter 8”, I also knew that it was important that I connect sentences and paragraphs in a logical way. I had to make sure that my previous sentence connected with the next one. Prior to reading this chapter I struggled sometimes with the organization of my paragraphs. The missing component I found was just finding a way to immerse my ideas together between my sentences and paragraphs. William Van Dusen Wishard’s reading also demonstrated what I had to do in order to ensure that the structure of my argumentative essay was an effective one. Wishard took his argument, built it with academic sources, and then supported his argument. While writing I tried to incorporate what I had read about in my essay. I then tried to follow suit. I learned and promised to myself that, as a writer, I won’t just use my opinion when It comes to writing essays, but I will have claims that are supported with credible evidence.

Overall I can say that, my writing skills has improved greatly from the beginning of the semester to the end. At first I struggled at targeting my audience, and addressing them effectively, transitioning my ideas and much more, but I became better at this. I didn’t do this by myself, because my peers and Professor Rodwell gave me feedback, and many times, I needed another pair of eyes to see my writing from another perspective. Throughout my e-portfolio, I will provide proof of how I became a better writer by providing my essays, self reflections, classwork/ notes, a presentation on how to address your audience effectively, and my annotated bibliography for my critical analysis essay. I will then list what I learned about each of the items listed above, to demonstrate how I’ve grown as a writer throughout this semester.