1. Getting out of your comfort zone

Generally, I am not one to look for ways to get out of my comfort zone. I definitely avoid any situation where I might end up feeling uncomfortable or embarrassed. That being said, I feel that I have pushed myself to go outside of my comfort zone, more in this class than any other writing class I have ever taken. I certainly did not feel comfortable writing about the topic that I chose for the exploratory essay - I seriously considered entirely rewriting the paper after I had finished - yet I stuck with it because I thought that it would at the very least be a good learning experience. I think that this essay taught me that adding personal touches can be more effective than I once realized. In the first draft of the essay I had basically no discussion of myself or my reason for choosing the topic. In the second draft I added two short anecdotes about myself

“I remember getting dropped off in front of the large cabin-like structure where the event was held. I opened the doors and looked around to see a swarm of kids and their parents all sitting around, talking, and waiting for the event to begin. I sat down in a plastic chair, dug into the fibers of its backrest, and slowly inched my way further towards the far corner of the building and quietly observed the scene before me. I heard the whirring of strange machines on one end of the building and coaches bellowing into a microphone on the other end. The waves of sound overwhelmed me. Eventually, I began to analyze their movements. I looked at their body language and their speech patterns. They interacted comfortably with each other and often spoke in an overly-exuberant manner. I often heard the same words or phrases repeated over and over. I thought to myself ‘do they even realize the repetitive nature of their interaction?’”

I was fairly skeptical at the time about adding the above text into my second draft, but I now realize that adding this sort of personal anecdote is key in tempering the sort of harsh topic that I chose (problems with society). In my final draft I will be adding an additional 1-2 paragraphs specifically about my history and failure in fighting what I see as flaws in our human nature. Hopefully, this will make the reader more open to my message.

I have almost always avoided these sorts of personal anecdotes so the fact that I am even attempting to fit them in with my writing is a sign that I am headed in the write direction.

2. Composing Processes

Since I was little, my mom always made me go through the brainstorming and outlining process before I was allowed to begin writing my papers. She forced me to use a program called “inspiration” to make visual outlines (sort of like the visual bibliography). At the time I complained that these additional processes made the assignments take much longer than would otherwise be necessary. But now, these processes have become a simple routine that I use in all of my writing and definitely help me clarify my own ideas to myself before I attempt to convey them to the reader.

3. Making Connections

I feel that I have done a fairly good job making connections so far this class. I was particularly proud of my second blog post responding to our reading in Who Says.

“Assuming that this preface accurately summarizes what the reader can expect to see in the following chapters, I can take this to mean that instead of simply giving us a list of good and bad resources and describing the proper structure for a research paper, Who Says? will instead supply me, the reader, with the tools to determine those things for myself.”

I am also excited for our research assignment. I decided to continue with some similar ideas as those given in my exploratory essay, but I won’t have to worry about coming off as too cynical because, this paper will be mostly facts and research as opposed to simply my opinion. I am looking forward to making connections between various studies and the ideas that I am trying to promote.

4. Independent Inquiry and Curiosity

Although I feel that I am improving in the above regard, I still don’t believe that I have the independent curiosity that a good writer should. Someone who I have a lot of respect for in this regard is Juliuse. Although he is not in my group, early on in class he reached out to me to try and work together and talk about our ideas for different assignments. He is always trying to improve his writing and become a better writer. Below is an excerpt from his most recent blog post:

“From prior knowledge, artificial intelligence is human made and is growing at a fast rate. There's a plethora of movies that involve artificial intelligence which piqued my interest about the topic. From iRobot to Ex-Machina, each of the artificially intelligent robots in the movies became sentient beings due to their possession of emotions. I wonder if there's ever going to be a time where artificial intelligence actually become sentient.”

After speaking with him about this topic, I can definitely tell that it’s something he has thought about. I definitely think that I could take a lesson from him being a more curious writer.

5. Rhetorical Knowledge

I definitely think that this is the area in which I need the most improvement. English was never one of my favorite classes so I often ignored some important lessons. I can’t really think of the work of another student that would support this point particularly well, but that is probably because I don’t even know exactly where my rhetorical knowledge is lacking to begin with. To address this in the second half of the semester, I will take special care when reading Who Says? and will finish the book even if it is not assigned. Besides that, hopefully I will be able to improve my rhetorical knowledge simply by being an attentive student in class.