Coming into WRT 150, I would say that I was an inexperienced writer. Although I was only one ACT point away from taking WRT 160, I am glad that I had to take WRT 150 first. I did not feel that I was prepared in high school for college writing. I did not know much about rhetorical appeals, how to write a thesis statement, or the many other things that this class had focused on. Since starting this course, I am an overall better writer; I can write a well constructed thesis statement and I have a better understanding for the rhetorical appeals. Analyzing rhetorical situations are not super challenging but I do think that I sort of struggle with them. Figuring out the purpose, audience, and writer is fairly audience, and writer is fairly easy for me.
The writer is pretty simple to figure out you just look and see who the author is, simple as pie! The text is also fairly easy to decipher. Context is something that I feel is harder. I generally have a hard time digging deeper into writing than what is on the surface. I did not know much about the rhetorical appeals coming into this class. I had only heard of them once and that was in my 12th grade English class. I now know them much better and I have a clearer understanding of them. I can also identify them better than I could before. On the second free-write we did, I did much better and got a 4.0 because I knew the rhetorical appeals better after we did all the exercises concerning them.
For the first free-write assignment that we did, I had a hard time remembering the appeals and which was which. I still do not really know much about Kairos, but I do not think we focused heavily on that one. I know how to use these rhetorical appeals better in my writings and I know how to apply them better. I will admit that I do not willingly try to use rhetorical appeals in my writing because they are still new to me. We did not really “read” much in this class, but we did practice reading rhetorically a little bit. Pictures are really hard for me to read rhetorically and just read in general. They are just images with a sentence or a phrase or maybe one word, all of which are hard for me to interpret.
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The rhetorical scavenger hunt did help me a lot though. I did struggle coming up with an explanation for the pictures but in the end I think I got it down and explained my stuff well. I have a much better understanding for reading images now. I liked doing the free-writes of analyzing the commercials. That was fun and gave me a better understanding for “reading” rhetorically. When it comes to writing, I do not consider myself to have a particular process.” I do, however, think that I can adapt and transfer my learning to all different sorts of settings. I think that I have good writing habits, except that I do not really read through my papers, which I really must start doing.
I use the same structure about 95% of the time when constructing my sentences. I have learned that college writing needs to have variation in sentence structure, which I am really trying to do. College writing should also have transitions which I am not too great at implementing. I always forget to add them to my papers, but for the collaborative essay I did use transitions. I would say that there is a process to writing, it is always good to revise papers to make sure they are good and have little to no errors. That is something that college writers should do. I do not really construct many drafts. When going from a rough draft to a final draft, I really only make minimal changes.
That is something that I also have to work on, but have learned is important in this writing class and college and above writing in general. I think that I was pretty strong in MLA when coming into this class. My Works Cited pages in both papers had minimal things that needed fixing. One thing, however, I do struggle with is in-text citations. I think I accidentally plagiarized a lot in the Speech Analysis Paper but I improved with citing for my Career Research paper. Like you said, it is better to over-cite than under-cite but do not go totally willy-nilly with it. It kind of stinks because I feel that I have finally mastered MLA and in WRT 160 APA is used instead of MLA. That is so not cool.
My writing has definitely improved throughout this course. I can write conclusions and introductions better than I could before. I can also write a better thesis statement. The first thesis statement that I wrote for this class was “Throughout John F. Kennedy’s ‘A Strategy of Peace’ speech, Kennedy wants the audience to visualize and attempt world peace for the sake of our country and others by using rational examples and appealing to the emotions.” That was not a very good thesis statement. It was not really argumentative and the reasons for the claim were pretty bad. My second thesis for this class was “The MRI is a vital machine in the field of cardiology and all of medicine because it is key in diagnosing cardiomyopathy, stun heart muscle, and different sorts of cancerous tumors.”
This had a good claim and a good explanation for the claim also. My second thesis was much better than the first one and I have tremendously improved. From the beginning of the course to now, I read through my writing more. I also make sure that my information I have is correct and factual, I do not just use random websites and information I find. I found doing the CRAAP sheet really helpful when picking and choosing sources and what information I should use. I will definitely use it in the future for sure. The hardest part about writing for me is the conclusion and introduction. It has always been this way, since the beginning of my writing career.
I struggle to find an attention-getter in the introduction and I fail to leave my audience wanting more in the conclusion. Both of my papers I did not do well in the conclusion department but I am really trying to up my game. If I just continue writing and practicing, in time I will be able to do both of those things better. In conclusion, I feel that WRT 150 has really prepared me for future college writing classes. I am excited to use my new skills that I have learned throughout my upcoming classes and whatever writing I will be doing out of college. I am a much better writer now than I was coming into this class. Before starting this class I did not know much about thesis statements or rhetorical appeals. Writing was not my strong suit, and I will admit it still is not, but every day in WRT 150 I feel that I had become a better writer.
