My Writing Experiences
My Previous Views on Writing — PreWRD 103
I have always enjoyed writing, and it has never been a subject I’ve ever struggled in. I have had many writing experiences from middle school through high school, each year growing more and more as a writer. Before WRD 103, I was constantly writing academic research papers and although I enjoyed writing them, there were times where I felt that I would get bored with my writing and following the same format that had to be followed for academic papers. WRD 103 had me do something I had never done before, which was take a step back and rethink everything I had ever known about writing. I had never really thought about writing and it was very interesting to actually learn about writing itself and learn different terms, and methods that I had previously never been taught. In the beginning of this course, we were asked to make a Key Terms Map with terms we associate with writing. Some of the terms I had written down my first time around had been: Informative, Connection, and Expressive. I chose these terms because I believe that when you are writing, you are trying to give the reader information and make a connection with them, so that the reader can better understand the writing. My knowledge about writing was very basic, but throughout the course, I feel that my definition and Key Terms have grown. A few months later, we revised the terms and I found that, although some terms stayed the same, I had added a few that I learned. These new terms included, Constraints, Research, and Rhetorical Situation. A Rhetorical situation is a scenario that involves a constraint, an audience, and issue, Constraints are problems or obstacles you may face in rhetorical situations, and Research is studying and learning about a topic and going in depth to inform the reader about whatever it is you are researching.
Project 1
Project 1 was the first project we did for this quarter and I feel that it really helped look at writing in a different way, was well as reflect on the writing that I had done in the past. For this project, we had to break down a writing experience that we had done in the past and I chose my senior year research paper. This paper was a very big deal and I did a lot of in depth research in order to complete it. I have never written a paper about a paper, so it was to explore how I formatted the paper, and what my experience was while writing it. This paper really helped me open up to the idea about learning what writing is and forming my own definition throughout the course.
My Theory of Writing
My theory of writing has changed a lot throughout this course and with all of the new terms and insight I have gained, I feel very confident in it. My definition of writing is: A way to convey information and spread thoughts and ideas. It is a very important and common way to express stories, feelings, and messages.
My key terms for writing include:
- Create
- Analysis
- Research
- Constraints
- Ideas
- Genre
- Information
- Rhetorical Situations
- Express
- Thoughts
These terms are very important to me because I strongly associate these words with writing, as well as my writing process. I try to incorporate each of these words into my writing pieces because I feel that these terms build off of each other and together, form a well written piece. An interesting thing that I learned was that, these terms are common in most people’s key terms list, and although some terms may be the same, everyone’s definition and terms are different because we were all taught about writing in different ways.
The Key Role of Discussion Posts
Throughout the course, we have done many assignments and in class activities that have helped me grasp this new way of learning about writing and further my knowledge about terms and processes. The discussion boards were very useful and really helped my understanding of the readings. It was interesting to see my classmates point of view and getting different perspectives helped me understand parts of the reading in which I may have struggled to understand. My favorite discussion board was the Multimodal Composing because we were able to watch videos that connected to Project #3 and it was very interesting to see other student’s interpretation of their own Multimodal Composing. Both the videos and the website were very cool and definitely helped me when I began composing Project #3 and thinking of possible genres. These discussion boards have definitely contributed to my theory of writing, throughout all of the discussions and comments by classmates.
My Writing Process
Since I can remember, my writing process has always been the same. The first thing I normally do is think about the prompt or what the writing assignment entails. If I have any ideas or important thoughts, I will jot them down into the Notes App on my phone. Then I will begin my drafting process. During this process, I normally write my first draft to get all my ideas out on paper, and as I begin to revise, I will cut or expand on ideas depending of if they work with the piece or if I like them of not. After the drafting process, Ill take a break for a little while, and do something that is not school related to give my mind some time to rest, so that when I look at my writing again, I’ll have a fresh look at it. After various drafts, I normally will have a friend look it over to see if they understand the point of the paper, or get the information I am trying to convey and then I’ll do my editing. After editing, I’ll give it a final look over and them submit it/ turn it in. My theory of writing definitely impacted my writing practices and helped me add in steps that I had previously never though of before.
Overall Thoughts
Overall, my idea and theory of writing has changed juristically throughout this course and my growth as a writer has been incredible. Although I have always enjoyed writing paper, I feel that this course gave me a fresh outlook on writing and made me take a step back and reevaluate everything that I have previously been taught. It was amazing to see my varying definitions and key terms of writing and how they changed throughout the course. My outlook on writing has definitely been refreshed, and I feel that I have grown in both my knowledge about writing, and as a writer.