Overall Reflection

I think the biggest thing I’ve learned throughout ENC2135 was to let go of the preconceived notions I’ve had from high school about types of papers and genres. I was taught to format certain types of papers in specific ways, and that isn’t exactly what’s expected in college. It was a surprising change that took a little adjustment, but it’s also a welcome change because it makes writing papers and little more interesting. Trying to figure out a new way to format the paper while remaining at its core the type of paper I’ve been assigned is both fun and slightly challenging.

My first of the three papers was, by far, my worst. It was a personal narrative, but I didn’t write it like one. In high school, I was told to keep it formal and academic, even when writing a personal narrative. So my first draft of Project 1 was formal and academic and didn’t read like a personal narrative at all. Admittedly, my final draft wasn’t much better. It still wasn’t personal enough and was better suited for a research paper than a personal narrative.

I had the same problem going into Project 2. I wrote my first draft in the way I was taught to write a research paper, and that made it horribly boring. It was full of passive voice and the focus was almost solely on the research I did. It was also seriously lacking in cohesion. My conference was the “a-ha” moment; I was told how to make it less boring, and I was given a mapped-out way to make my paper flow better. For the final draft, I completely rewrote my first draft and focused more on my interview with my friend about her community and relating my research back to her community than the research itself. I think my final draft was a definite improvement to the first.

Project 3 gave me a little trouble when it came to choosing genres. The flyer was almost a given; it was one of the ways my friend’s community communicated and they also had a show coming up. But almost up until the day I had to give my pitch, I had no idea what my other two genres would be. A different friend of mine suggested writing a review, which I thought was a great idea so I decided to do it for my second genre. But the final genre took until a little before I made my pitch. At first, I was going to make a Piktochart about the effects of punishment on participation, and I was just going to share it on my Wix site. However, when I sat down to make it, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I thought for a while and then remembered this service several of my high school teachers used: Remind101. It’s a free texting service in which someone can make an account, create a class, and have the individuals they want to sign up text a 6-digit number the class code. Once they’ve joined the class, the person who made the class can send out reminders and the members of the class will get the reminders as a text. It’s all free, so I decided to do that as my third genre. I made one for my friend’s community and I gave her the login information. I also emailed her my flyer as well as my review/critique.

I think ENC2135 helped me grow as both a writer and researcher. I had to branch out from what I was used to from high school and when I had to do research, I had to get creative. I hope having to do that for this class will extend to other classes I have to write papers for, and lets me continue to grow.