When I first heard of this assignment on my theory of writing, I didn’t know what I would write about. This assignment made me think about what my theory of writing is. Whenever I wrote a paper in high school, I would never think who my audience would be or which type of genre I would write in. Instead, I just wrote what was required by the teachers and used every vocabulary word that was required with some evidence to back it up. That was it. I didn’t think how I can improve it, as long as it met the requirements set by the teacher.
Whenever I start writing, it truly is a hassle to get the words from my head to paper. Sometimes I get distracted by other things around which makes it harder for me to write a well written paper. I’ve discovered that I write better when I’m listening to music and when I’m alone in my room. When picking the type of music to hear, I usually pick a song with a strong bass. For some reason, I love the sound of the bass in songs and whenever I hear the bass while writing, I follow it’s beat and the words that used to get stuck in my head becomes much easier to put on paper. In the past, I have struggled writing long papers, even just a tiny assignment, but as the years went by in high school, I discovered that I write my best papers when I’m under pressure. I don’t know if it’s just me, but whenever I have a paper due the next day or even on the same exact day, I write my best papers. When I’m under the pressure, I quickly come up with what I must write about, and my hand doesn’t stop writing until I’m finished with the paper. Maybe I’m just weird, but the pressure really encourages me to write and the feeling I get when I finish a five-page essay in under an hour gives me joy.
Coming into the first day of English Composition, I didn’t know what to expect. All I knew at the time is that it’s going to be a struggle for me since I’ve never been good at writing papers. However, this was the total opposite of what I originally thought. This class has been one of my best classes in the semester. When I was assigned my first assignment on source-based essay, I was confused. I’ve never written this type of essay before, so I struggled in the beginning, but after Professor Duran explained all the rhetorical elements and explained to us that every author uses these elements in their writing, it made it much easier and I knew where to start. I’ve heard about these rhetorical elements before in high school however, I’ve never truly got the gist of it until English Composition. Now knowing what these elements due to a writing piece to improve it, made me realize how easy it is to write a paper. I thought to myself, if I learned this back in high school, it would have been so much easier for me when it comes to writing an essay or when I had to analyze a writing piece. I remember when my class had to write a thank you letter to one of the airline companies for donating one of their aircrafts to our school. Back then I was stuck and didn’t know what to write. Looking back at it, writing that thank you letter is so much easier after learning the rhetorical elements.
Back in high school, I have learned the basics like tone, stance, language, medium, and purpose but, there are two writing strategies that changed the way I write. I remember back in my last year of high school learning about this stuff but, like any other student in their last year, I didn’t pay attention and completely forgot about the strategies I learned. Here in English Composition is where I learned the importance of audience and genre. I discovered the importance of audience and genre when I was assigned the composition in two genres. Depending on the type of genre I was going to choose, I had to follow a certain guideline and use the correct diction for my genre. Picking what genre I wanted to write was hard, but it is very important, and it’ll shape the way I write my writing piece. Audience, on the other hand, made me realize who I was writing my piece for. Before I understood the importance of audience, I would just write whatever I wanted. I never once thought about who was going to read my work or who I was targeting my work to be read by, but after learning it again in English Composition, the way I wrote changed. I started to think outside the box and focused more on who I’m writing it for, and this really made me think harder. For me in the beginning, it was very difficult. I wanted my writing to capture the attention of the audience I was writing for, so I used various kinds of word choices to see which one fit best for the audience I was writing for. After I knew what kind of format and language I was going to use in my writing, it was easy to continue writing non-stop.
One of the first assignments I got assigned for English Composition was a source-based essay. I had no idea what a source-based essay was nor didn’t know how to start one. This is when I relearned the rhetorical terms such as rhetorical situation, tone, purpose, stance, language, and author. This assignment made us practice using these rhetorical terms so we can become familiarize and be able to apply them when necessary. For being a first assignment, I really thought it was beneficial for me. I didn’t remember how to use these rhetorical terms in my writing when I first heard of them, but the sourced based essay made me remember and it made it much easier for me to understand what each one of the terms means. If I could choose one of the terms that impacted my writing from the source-based essay, I would choose rhetorical situation. No one would really pay that much attention to rhetorical situation, I didn’t in the beginning. I believed that rhetoric situation was unnecessary and useless, but I was wrong.
The source-based essay was where I had to identify the rhetorical situation of the author, but it was Blitzer’s writing that made me understand it. When I was reading Blitzer’s work, I understood that rhetorical situation was like the base of the writing piece and it would determine how I would use the other rhetorical terms. Having learned this, every other work I had to write, be it for English or Engineering, I would think the rhetorical situation I was in. When I identified it, it made my writing piece so much easier to write.
Whenever I had peer review back in high school, it would be a total waste of time and wouldn’t benefit me. I don’t know if it’s just me who thinks this way, but that’s what I truly thought back then. Now here in English Composition, it’s the total opposite. Peer review in college really benefits me and my writing. Whenever I was assigned an essay for English Composition, I knew there was going to be a day where we would peer review it, so I would just write whatever was in my head at the time and bring it to be reviewed by my peers. By doing this, I would spend less time thinking about what I would write, and I would write what I really wanted to write. Then when my worked has been reviewed, I get positive feedback and useful advice on what I’m missing in my work and ways to improve it. Never again I would never disrespect peer review ever again.
I appreciate what I learned in English Composition. This is one of the very first classes where I had the freedom to find my own writing style. In other classes in high school, I would have to write according to the rubric or the way the teacher wanted it to be written. I learned a bunch of rhetorical terms that I could use to my advantage in order to make my work stand out compare to others and to make it much easier for me to write an essay. This class has really shaped how I would write from now on.
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