Reflective Essay

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Zulema Cuevas

Prof. Fischer

Writing 39C

4 December 2015

The Process of Achieving Betterment as a Writer

     I came into this class with the knowledge of my weaknesses and the drive to strengthen them.  My journey throughout this quarter comprised of a roller coaster of emotions that ranged more or less between feeling frustrated or content. After my Writing 37 class, I had been able to successfully organize an essay, however, the substantial amount of research that was required for this class made it exceptionally challenging for me to do so. Several times I found myself stuck being able to make my ideas logically flow but as the quarter progressed I learned new skills that would alleviate these frustrations. The writer that entered Professor Fischer's Writing 37 class would have been impressed at the writer she would soon become. By attending office hours and being actively engaged in this class I was able to improve my organization, writing style, and use of rhetoric throughout the quarter which ultimately made me a stronger writer and scholar.  

     Because this class consisted of a substantial amount of research, my previous experience in Writing 37 allowed for me to enter this class with skills that benefited my thought process. My writing did not start demonstrating a significant impact until I enrolled in Writing 37 during my spring quarter last year. The first draft of my CRR essay was a five paragraph mess. I walked into this class with the rudimentary formula to write an essay, thus, my first essay received poor feedback. In efforts to understand where I had gone wrong, I went to seek help with my professor. It was there that I learned that I had an unreasonable amount of repetition in my essay due to the lack of organization. It was then that my professor advised for me to create an outline and group my ideas together. After going through an extensive revision process, I was able to create a decent essay. This skill was continuously practiced throughout the rest of my quarter in Writing 37 and eventually utilized in this class as well. However, during this class there was a lot more information that had to be organized which made the organization process challenging. Several times I found myself revising the outlines themselves. 

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Fig.1. This image exemplifies my constant struggle with organization. The outline itself is added onto which helps my develop my thought process

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Being able to organize my very own thoughts was essential to my essay because it allowed for my reader to follow through my thought process. Writing 37 did not only prepare me for this class in an organizational aspect but also provided me with the knowledge of  finding and utilizing efficient research. In this course we were expected to write an RA essay, in which we used credible sources to support our analysis. This is where I was introduced to the article database EbscoHost. Although I initially struggled with properly integrating sources, several in class workshops taught me the proper way to do so, thus, making the research process less challenging.

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Fig.2. This image is taken from a revision made in my Writing 37 portfolio of my CRR essay. This demonstrates my level of writing at the beginning of my Writing career at UCI. I chose this image because it focuses on the repetition that my lack of organization caused. 

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     Through the analysis of in class examples, I was able to enhance my previously attained organizational skills by incorporating narrative topic sentences and transition words in order to create logical flow of my ideas throughout the essay. During the HCP writing process, our class was required to examine Gawande’s use of transition words. Rather than present statements, Gawande’s use of transition words linked his ideas together smoothly and logically. After observing this in effect, I decided to reciprocate the same ideal. Throughout my HCP essay, I attempted to add in transition words but the lack of proper integration did not allow for them to serve their full purpose.

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HCP Essay: The long lasting fight against poverty taught America that this is not an easy war to win. In 1964, a shocking 22% of America’s population were living in poverty. President Lyndon B. Johnson needed to find a solution to this outbreak and decided to call a “War on Poverty” (Crooks 2)
AP Essay: "Past efforts to alleviate the problem highlight that child poverty is not an easy problem to solve. In 1964, a shocking 22% of America’s population were living in poverty. Consequently, President Lyndon B. Johnson decided to call a “War on Poverty” in order to find a solution to this outbreak (Crooks 2)."

I chose this example to demonstrate my incorporation of transition words in my AP essay in comparison to my HCP essay. 

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As the quarter progressed, I began to practice the use of transition words and eventually managed to successfully integrate them into my AP essay. The use of topic sentences also added to the logical flow of my ideas because my paragraphs began to have coherence. In class, the professor provided an example of the a AP essay that included topic sentences that connected to the previous paragraphs. Doing so, the reader is able to follow through the writer’s thought process. To ensure that my topic sentences made sense withone another, I copy and pasted my topic sentences into a separate document to create a paragraph. This did help because I was able to observe if I was being repetitive. Constructing narrative topic sentences was greatly beneficial to the organization of my thought process because I am able to connect my very own thoughts together and demonstrate this to the reader as well.

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     In the same way, analyzing the text Better helped me implement a narrative writing style that would strengthen the persuasiveness of my argument. My first draft for my HCP essay comprised of an introduction paragraph that overwhelmed the reader with statistics on the absurd amount of children living in poverty in America. It was not until I received feedback from my professor that I realized this was a problem. My professor advised me to look at the way Gawande introduces the problems he discusses. Throughout the text, Gawande introduces the problem with an anecdote.Consequently, I decided that beginning my essay with a story of a child in poverty would reflect Gawande’s writing and appeal to the emotions of the reader. During the writing process of the HCP essay the professor assigned a blog post in which we were asked to analyze Gawande’s use of narratives. This assignment made me aware that Gawande does not simply add the story to introduce the problem but continues to refer back to it. I decided that reciprocating the same strategy would have the same effect in my argument and continuously remind the reader to sympathize Marcell. 

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Fig.3. This image is the feedback provided by Professor Fischer. In this comment she advises for me to analyze Gawande's writing. I included this because this is the feedback that initiated my development of the narrative style writing.

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     Throughout the course of this class I also learned to improve my use of rhetoric by utilizing multimodal artifacts and incorporating a counter argument. Before entering this class, I had not yet been exposed “Multimodal artifacts” and had only been vaguely introduced to counter arguments. Consequently, my first attempt to include multimodal artifacts into my Self Assessment consisted of images that did not communicate with the reader. As a class, we reviewed the images that served purpose and strengthened the argument in comparison to the images that distracted the reader. Through this lesson I learned that the image in my essay of a scientist did not help me as a rhetor but rather that I was capable of choosing aesthetically pleasing images. Through this learning experience I became aware that multimodal facts have the power to communicate to the reader by visually engaging the reader. That being said, I decided to include graphs into my essays that emphasized the magnitude that child poverty targets the education of a child as a way to enforce this ideal to the reader. In the same way, a counterargument adds to my credibility as a rhetor because it demonstrates that I weighed out alternative ideals. Although it was not necessary to include a counterargument into my HCP essay, it was vital for my AP essay. The reflection blog for week 3 introduced me to the idea and need for a counter argument because we were required to chose a side, either Gawande or Shaywitz, and use information from both sources to argue against the other’s ideal. This assignment later helped me develop a counter argument. My first attempt to integrate my argument was a failure because it comprised of a sentence. After emailing my professor for feedback, I learned that I need to logically integrate an elaborate separate paragraph into my essay. My final AP essay included this exactly before my proposed solution in order to show the reader an option that is good but not as great as the one I am suggesting.

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Read, Reflect, Respond. Read Shaywitz's article "Do You Believe Doctors Are Systems, My Friends?" (Links to an external site.) Then in a short response explain why you would either: Agree with Shaywitz or Defend Gawande. This will force you to take a side and argue it with evidence from the text. Referring to the text is required.
This was the assigned Reflection Blog for Week 3. Figure 4 is a small excerpt that is part of my response but more information on this blog post can be found on my portfolio.

 

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Fig.4.

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     This class was the foundation to my journey as a writer. Although previous classes brought growth, this class instilled those attained skills and developed them. Overcoming the challenges in this class required persistence, in this way I can say that this class taught me life skills. As Gawande said, “Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try" (Gawande). Truthfully, I put a lot of effort to see growth in myself as a writer and as a scholar. Seeking help when it was necessary, not giving up when it was frustrating, and being an active student in class has demonstrated that "Better is possible". 

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