Kierston Sharp December 6, 2012 English 1101-028 Mr.

Borrero

Semester Reflection

Considering that this was the first English class of my college experience, I didnt really know what to expect besides a lot of writing because I had heard that from my older sisters. However, as the semester went on I saw that there was more to this course than just writing senseless papers. We were working towards a goal altogether as well as working on our own individual writing problems. The Multi-Modal Literacy Narrative and the Literacy Ethnography, in addition to other activities and journals changed my perception of literature. The Multi-Modal Literacy Narrative was the beginning of my enlightenment. We had done journal called I Can Reed and Right, which triggered thoughts about what we classify as literature and why. After doing this we began our project and started to delve deeper into the reasons we felt about literacy and why. Defining what my sponsors were was the most helpful step in this entire project because that became the main focus for my product. The decisions I made in regards to my poetry book received great praise but my defense essay lacked clarity and detail. I had always been told I was a good writer so I figured college would be the same; after receiving feedback on my defense essay I was quickly brought back to reality. My writing needed severe help because I hadnt done my job and persuaded you of my logic for creating a poetry book despite the success I had with it. This made me notice how undetailed and vague my writing is. It hinders me from getting my point across because I leave readers hanging by not

explicating what I was trying to convey. I also realized how much I bounce around my writing which eventually causes it to be seemingly ineffective. On my first project I took major creative risks pertaining to the layout of my product. First I feared that the out-of-the box concepts included in my book would be hard to grade, thus earning me a low grade. I decided to be eclectic instead of conservative and it paid of greatly. The depth that the textures and layout provided was greatly appreciated. However, the lack of detail about the small nuances and textures within my defense essay overshadowed my success in the creativity department. Between the two projects we did, I felt like I was humbled. English is my strongest subject so I thought there would be nothing to it but in fact, I was not as great as I originally thought. My approach for my second project was majorly effect by the epiphany. The Literacy Ethnography gave me a chance to engage with a discourse community most people dont think of as being very literary at all. Through my observations and interviews of tattoo artists I feel as though I got a chance to defend a discourse community always under attack simply because of exterior. In my Literacy Narrative, one of my poems was about how often and harshly I get judged because of my aesthetics. By doing this community, I felt like I was able to easily identify with them because we all receive the same shocked looks when we speak articulately. I feel like this project is what made me into the writer I am now. Not only was I trying to improve from my previous project, but I also felt like it was my duty to present my findings for the guys I observed. There was more pressure on this project because we had to not only fix our mistakes from the last one, but also we had to show more growth. I dealt with the pressure constructively and it paid off in the end. I felt like it was not only the best research

paper I had ever written, but it was the best paper of the entire semester. I was able to correctly cite things and I for the first time in my life, I had to engage with an annotated bibliography. This might have been the hardest assignment of the entire semester because not only was it time consuming but it was difficult to think in those terms. I never sat down to think about why I was using a source besides the fact that they had a good phrase in it that I could use. This activity made me analyze whether my choice in sources was on the right track. It taught me a lot about the components needed to make a successful research paper like quotes. My goals were to go into more detail and support statements so that there was no questioning the truth in them. I felt really good about this project, not only because I was previously exposed to it, but also because I had really committed to it. I admittedly did not give 100% effort on my first project so I felt like I needed to make up for it by hitting my ethnography out of the park The most important aspects of this class were journal entries and speed dating activities. When forced to answer questions that you dont normally ponder, theres a whole new opened up. When first asked what literature was I referred to it as being anything written in an

informational manner. Now that I reflect on that, I have a much different opinion of what literature is as well as what constitutes good writing. The journals helped me to confront ideals I never even knew existed. After doing a journal, most the time I began a different path on whatever we were working on. The inspiration from thought-provoking journal entries sent me on a much more positive path to conclude the work I was doing. Speed dating was my favorite activity of the entire semester. It always seemed to happen right when I was having major writers block or if I was wavering on a creative decision I had to make. It was nice to get help from multiple peers. We all needed help so it was refreshing to speak with others and know that

while they helped me, I assisted them too. It also made me more comfortable with the people in my class as a whole. After all of the feedback and critique I was able to confidently revise my defense essay. I worked on major issues like topical structure and detail. I feel that it not only enhanced the clarity but also made me a better writer. I now have examples of my good writing and my writing that lacks successful components. As a result of this class, my outlook on writing and literacy has changed drastically. I was very conservative in my definition of text, looking at it as only something tangible and informative. This definition excluded all social aspects of literacy. I now understand that we have more freedom in classification than I had ever previously thought; including structure, good writing, and what a text is. Im far from a perfect writer and still have a lot of work to do but I do feel like Ive experienced exponential growth through this class. Though the workload was rigorous in addition to my other classes, I feel like it paid off. Im a much less arrogant writer. Im a much more detailed writer. I broke bad habits like not putting enough detail into things and gained good habits like believing that someone in this world thinks my writing is good.