Portfolio: Reflective Letter

Well this has certainly been and interesting and eye-opening year for me. It’s been difficult and there have been a lot of challenges. That sad thing is I don’t think I’ve adequately fulfilled many of the challenges. I had lots of trouble with procrastination. I would get distracted and not focus on what I should’ve been doing. And a constant habit was waiting until the last minute to do the assigned work. This produced continual failings that showed me that this class was not intended to be a cakewalk. In other words, you’ve actually got to work for the grade. And if you don’t work, you certainly don’t get the grade.

Much of the procrastination was caused by plain laziness. But laziness wasn’t necessarily the only factor that contributed to my bad habit. Not to sound like a soft chump or anything, but I was also dealing with intense emotional problems and minor health problems. I also had difficulty with the They Say, I Say textbook. It wasn’t too hard to understand the concepts in the book, but it was just difficult to apply them in my writing. Not only did you have to write well-thought-out and relevant content, but you also had to fit and format the content into these templates. At first, I hated it. But the more I practiced using the templates, the easier it became.

Overall, I’m disappointed in my work and performance. As I’ve wholeheartedly learned, procrastination really doesn’t do any good for you. It decreases your focus, stresses you out, and ultimately produces bad results. And, unfortunately, this fact has been made evident by the work that I’ve turned in throughout this quarter. For example, my first essay had the potential to be great. But my own procrastination caused it to be a weak paper that got a low grade. I waited to the last minute, so I wasn’t able to have a fully developed/supported thesis. The entire paper was a bit underdeveloped and unorganized.

Sometime during the beginning of the quarter, Craig had everyone post their writing philosophies onto our blogs. At first, this was a bit difficult for me. I didn't really have a philosophy, I just wrote whatever I was assigned to write. But when I really started thinking about it, I started to understand how I approached writing, and maybe how I could improve that approach. I had stated that writing, to me, was a form of communication and expression. Writing is something that you use to communicate. Use it to relay a message, inform someone, or ask a question. Or, just express your feelings. So at that time, I thought that writing was pretty simple. But there's one thing about writing that I hadn't realized at first: writing is an art. If you really want to influence, enlighten, or inspire someone, you've got to be an artist. The pen is your paintbrush, the paper is your canvas. Sentences, clauses, phrases, and templates; these are all the different colors you put together to make your work of art. When I first started this class, I just wrote in order to get the assignment done. Little did I know that I was missing the whole point.

This quarter certainly didn't turn out entirely bad. I really did learn a lot of new things and improved my writing. I learned to actually "write" about something and not just puke it onto the page. This means no filler and no "BS". Instead, develop thoughtful analysis and genuinely communicate what you have to say. Think before you write, and structure and organize your work accordingly. I may not have mastered these aspects of writing quite yet. But I'm certain that, after taking this class, I'm on the right track.
Throughout the quarter, my writing has been plagued by several weakness and shortcomings. I wasn't very proficient with structure and organization, and didn't use my topic sentences very well. For example, in my first essay I started off a paragraph with the following: "Bacon and his followers attacked and killed many Native Americans-hands down." This sentence really didn't do much to guide the rest of my paragraph, and I ended up going off into a ramble about the value of human life. The good thing is that I'm learning from my mistakes and am constantly trying to improve my past mistakes whenever I get the chance.
Overall, this writing class has been very helpful for me. I've fumbled a lot, but I've also learned from my mistakes. This class really showed me the amount of dedication and work that will be needed in order to survive in college, and showed me the writing skills I'll need to succeed in the classes. I'm very glad that I was able to take this class, and I hope to continue applying the concepts I've learned.