Self-Reflection

After taking this English and Writing course at Nebraska Wesleyan, I definitely feel my writing has evolved. It has benefitted me in several ways. For example, I feel as if I am incorporating more detail into my writing, especially my observations. after completing the observational assignments, it proved to me that writing can never go into too much depth when observing a particualar object. It allowed me to look at and focus in on just one particualar subject rather than the whole.

My opinion and attitude toward writing has significantly changed in a positive way. I never really enjoyed writing that much in high school because it seemed very methodical and repetitive after writing all the five paragraph essays. In this class we did many different types of writing assignments that varied in certani requirements. For instance, we were asked to write "free writes", short internet blog posts about whatever topic we chose, which we were very fun. Also, we did many different types of writing by observing a certain object and then analyzing a particular art object and relating the objects to other ideas. And finally, I am looking forward to the last writing assignment about a self-reflection through music because it is something I have never done before. I have never had the chance to write about subjects that I actually enjoy or have interests in but this class has given me the chance to improve my writing. The class has allowed me to improve my writing because I feel as if I'm putting in more effort because the writing is fun for me.

As far as my processes and techniqiues in writing, I feel they are more advanced and more developed. Through writing, I feel I am more intellectual. By this, I mean I feel as if I'm looking for meaning to the messages in my writing. Also, my analyzing of artwork and other's writing has improved. I've never really analzyed or graded another person's writing before, but after participating in this, I have been able to look at writing from another person's point of view or standpoint. It has given me the chance to look at my essays in a different way which enables me to further improve my writing.

Meeting and conferencing with my teacher has benefitted my writing in various aspects. Obviously, meeting with the teacher or advisor helped me fulfill the requirements but more importantly helped me look further into the subject. Suggestions were given to me to helped me elaborate more and really give more depth and detail about the subject. For example, my blog post about the grafitti of Barack Obama lacked a great deal of requirements. After making changes with my instructor, he showed me how I could really go into more detail about the history of grafitti and the meaning it has from a cultural standpoint. There were many questions presented such as "What does the spatial and property use of grafitti mean as a whole and how does it relate to society?" By meeting with a writing tutor, many questions were presented to me that challenged me as a writer.

There are so many different types of writing so it's very difficult to say whether it is "good writing" or not. I feel the key part in creating a successful writing piece is to complete and include every part needed for whatever writing assignment it is. For example, if it is an observation and reflection assignment, there needs to be just observation and reflection writing. There cannot be any other type of writing in the essay or else it will distract the reader and not get the main points across. As long as the essay includes useful information for the writing assignment, the essay will be successful as a whole.

Everyone has their strong and weak points as a writer but fortunately these can always be improved. Although my writing may not be the most intellectual and advanced piece of writing, I feel the strongest point of my writing is that I get my main points and ideas across. My writing tends to have a strong base of ideas but I still need to work on focusing on those ideas and enhancing them even more. I neeed to improve on elabortating them more by going into more detail and give meaning to each individual idea.