Mirella Cruz Trinidad

Kendra Fish

Writing 39 C

21 March 2017

Reflective Introduction

Introduction

Writing 39 C has taught me the importance of being an articulate professional in the world. Some of the most important things it has taught me is the importance to understand the technicalities of research, and communication. Before taking Writing 39 C, I had mixed emotions about this class. On the one hand, I was intimidated, because I have never written research papers. On the other hand, I was excited about the course because the course’s topic was very interesting. Learning about the American Education system fascinated me because was a topic I was passionate about. Throughout high school I have always been passionate about social issues, and issues involving the education system. Before taking this class, I have always known that my high school is widely known as a low performing school with “bad” students, but I never understood the significance of this. Researching the achievement gap, and school performance, for my Historical Conversations Project (HCP) and the Advocacy Essay (AE), has opened my eyes about the education system, and paved way for my writing development. Through the construction, revision, and rhetoric of my essay, I was able to take away many techniques for writing in a persuasive and professional way.  This class was indeed amazing.

Composing Process

In high school, to me, the word research always equated to science, and laboratory work. I never thought of research as a form of writing and of form of persuading. I was not aware that I could do research on my own. In this class, I learned that research is important to society because it allows writers to bring into light important issues. A writer can take a deeper look into the situation her or she is writing about. The process of finding research and writing the HCP and AE required lots of effort and patience because it was long. I began this long process, by dividing the work of writing these papers into three components, familiarization (becoming familiar with the topic), organization, and writing. To begin, it is very important to take the time to understand the topic one is writing about, and having interest in the topic. Thus, I chose my topic of the achievement gap in K-12, by first reading the assigned texts, the instructor assigned us to read. As I was reading the texts, I made to take notes, that will help me better understand the terminology used when speaking about the education system. Figure 1 is the image of the notes I took for the first chapter of Ravitch’s book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education”. In my notes, I have written terminology that surround the education system. Some of these words include, the No Child Left Behind legislation, and the famous text, A Nation at Risk. These notes helped me synthesize my ideas and my understanding, and allowed me to come up with ideas regarding the topic of education, of my own. After acquainting myself with the topic, I became interested in the achievement gap.

Figure 1: This is an image of my notebook notes regarding the first chapter of the “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.” As said before, this allows me to organize the ideas of the author, and helps me become familiar with the subject.  

At first finding research seemed very intimidate because I was unsure how to find sources. If it were not for the librarian’s presentation, I would have googled basic online articles regarding my topic. After the presentation, I was able to find scholarly articles regarding my topic on the school’s database. The reason why scholarly articles are more reliable is because they tend to be more objective and surrounded by lots of statistics, and evidence. Figure 2 is the image of my notes. In these notes, I organized my sources for my HCP by numbering them, writing down important information, like the title and the authors’ names, and significant arguments. I wrote important arguments the authors made. Appropriately integrating the evidence into my essay, was very difficult. This was very difficult because, although I did have all of my arguments, I was not sure where or how to integrate my sources. I ended up doing this by using the format of first writing the argument then writing a sentence that proves my point. Sort of like the boxing, aiming and punching. Throughout the progression of my papers, both the HCP and AE, drafts helped accentuate the strengths and weakness of my method of integrating evidence. Indeed, they allowed me to consider other ideas and other methods of including evidence in my essay. For instance, I sometimes quoted a source, or sometimes I just paraphrased the important details.

Figure 2: This is an image of my notebook notes in which I write the sources regarding my essay.

Rhetoric, Argumentation, & Multi-modal Communication

Taking this course has helped me become a more articulate writer by helping me write concise, powerful arguments, and helping use visual representations of evidence. As the rhetor, it is utterly important to know what the subject is about and to deliver the passion one has regarding a project, with the purpose of persuading the other party to joining one’s case. As I was writing my papers, I realized that everything in a paper is deliberate and that there ought to be meaning to every word, every multi-modal evidence, and every line in the essay. Thus, the class’s discussion regarding the different analytical frameworks allowed me to look deep into the significance of writing to persuade, and writing to make logical arguments. This was while I was writing my Advocacy Essay. This was extremely helpful because it allowed me to have a variety of arguments that support my case, which was the solution of my essay. Furthermore, the usage of multi-modal made me realize that it is very important to include visual representations of arguments. Figure 3 is an image of a multimodal I used in my AE. I used this multi-modal to visually demonstrate that the government has disparities in funding students around different states.

Figure 3: This is an image of a multi-modal I used in my AE. It helps portray the importance that the government is not spending enough money on students.

Revision

One of the most important skills I learned in this class is revising my own work and the work of my peers. After writing my essay Instructor Fish allowed had us, her students, peer edit each other’s essays. This was very helpful because it allowed me to look at work with other lenses that are not mine. Figure 4 is the image of comments made on my opposition paragraph for my AE. My partner told me to include ideas of the opposing party with the purpose of attacking the argument well. At first, I was a little discouraged because I was unsure if I was understanding the prompt or the assignment. I still remember that the first draft of the AE. I completely failed the first draft. My ideas were completely disorganized and my thesis was unclear. After receiving feedback from my instructor gave me the time to rewrite my entire essay from scratch. Although I was a little ashamed by the fact that my ideas are very disorganized, I was able to look over that, and improve both my paragraphs and my essay. Figure 5 is an image regarding the second organization of my AE essay. I used circle and figures to write important arguments I need to cover, and important evidence I should have in order to make my essay more appealing and credible. Furthermore, the advice Instructor Fish gave me, paved way for improvement.  

Figure 4: This is an image of comments made on my opposition paragraph. Here, my partner is pointing out weaknesses of my paragraph.

Figure 5: This is an image of my notes regarding the second draft of my essay. I organized my ideas in this page.

Transfer:

Overall, this course has given me a deeper understanding of being a strong advocate and communicator. I acquired various techniques that give me more chances of success in persuading people. I have used the skill of being concise and to the point in my chemistry lab, as shown in the image below. I am more aware of the wording and the styles there are in writing. Figure 6 is the description of the objective paragraph of a lab. I was able to gather important details of my lab and write it down in a paragraph. In the field of engineering, I will definitely use this skill of writing objectively, and using multi-modals, as shown by figure 7. The image below demonstrates the relation between vapor pressure and temperature. The graph is used to correlate the relation between vapor pressure and temperature. The multimodal made my lab reports more interesting and more persuasive.

Figure 6: This is an image of my chemistry electronic notebook notes. This is a paragraph of the objective of the lab. This demonstrates that I apply skills learned in Writing 39 C, in school.

Figure 7: This is an image of my chemistry electronic notebook. It demonstrates the graph of an experiment. I correlated this with data received from the lab. It demonstrates that multi-modals are important in writing, especially in the STEAM world.