Reflection
Dear Mrs. Cuddeback,
I want to start off by saying thank you for all that you have done for our class this semester. You pushed us to be creative and to strengthen our writing by assigning topics that kept us interested and aware of the beautiful city that we have each watched ourselves become apart of. From the beginning of the semester, you kept our minds sharp by introducing new strategies for brainstorming our writing. When I first was trying to decide what to write about for my memory assignment and you had the class draw a map of their house to pinpoint where certain childhood memories took place, I couldn’t believe the amount of things I remembered, both happy and sad. Afterwards, when we were instructed to put them into a timeline, even more memories flooded back. Immediately I noticed how most of my memories between seventh grade until the present were stemmed from my parents’ divorce, with a few in particular jumping out at me as significantly vivid, but I kept trying to find a different memory to write about. I remember after reading The Piano, a disjunctive essay, I stayed after class to talk to you about possibly writing a similar piece about my parents’ divorce. You instilled in me a confidence that I never had before, especially when it came to writing something so personal. Now I look at Phases of Metamorphosis as one of my favorite pieces I have ever written, and I have you to thank for pushing me to write such an intimate disjunctive essay.
Our next assignment, the magazine articles, intimidated me. I understand why now, but at the time I couldn’t figure it out. Personally, I think I felt a lot of pressure given that I want to one day be writing magazine articles as a career. On top of that, I had other things going on in my personal life that were also throwing me off my game. I loved how you gave us free range for the style and subject of our magazines, which ironically led to most of us writing about Florence. You helped us mildly research and further understand the culture and history that surrounds us everyday, which I think was needed for some students in particular. Even though I feel my magazine article could have been better, I still believe it helped to improve my writing skills and made me a little more prepared for a future career in journalism. I met with some of my friends that I have made here (all born and raised in Florence) and conducted an informal interview about their perception of Florence. I included questions such as:
- Describe Florence in one word or phrase.
- What is unique about Florence?
- Where is your favorite place to go in Florence?
- Where do you go to escape the city?
- What is honestly the most annoying thing about Florence and/or the large amount of students in the city?
Although it was a short interview with relatively vague questions, it did help me further understand what Florence looks like from a local’s perspective, and led to some great laughs as well.
Our last project, the poetry, was interesting to me. I’ve always loved to read poetry and have gone to watch spoken word a handful of times. Although I’ve tried many times to write poetry, it never came out as poetic as I would have liked. Practice does make perfect, and I think here the workshops in class had the most effect. I got a lot of feedback in a short amount of time and made sure to take it into consideration by making draft after draft of my poems. My favorite was my cigarette poem, even though I still am not one hundred percent in love with it. It has grown a lot since I first wrote it, and I think that is why I like it so much. It’s good to realize how far you have come and to appreciate it. I do wish we had more time in class to practice writing in form, especially since that is not exactly my specialty. I tried teaching myself how to write a villanelle, but it didn’t work out. Personally, in my highschool, we never had any poetry writing assignments, so this was definitely something new to me and I wasn’t quite sure what level of competency you were expecting.
All in all, I had a great semester in ENC1101. You taught me various different writing strategies and tactics that I can definitely use in the future. I love how you taught us how to write disjunctive essays and also how you went over some iconic pieces of poetry with the class. I definitely have grown as a writer throughout the semester, and I definitely noticed it most when I compared my first drafts to my final drafts. I know that I have a lot more to learn, and I’m excited to have you as my professor for another semester. I learned a lot about my writing style and issues that I need to overcome, such as my confidence level in my writing. Maybe next semester I’ll get the ambition to read something aloud and share it with the class… maybe. Either way I am excited to be taking ENC2135 with you again next semester, and I hope you have a great winter break and a happy New Year! (:
Best regards,
Dana Leger
