Midterm Introduction

As the quarter is continuing, I cannot help myself stopping my step and think about what progress I am complishing  in this quarter. Like many other students, I start from the bottom of Academic English(20A,20B and 20C). It was really frustrating . We went through all the grammar we can and learned to write basic writing. And I was afraid of screwing up my gpa because writing was my soft spot. Hopefully I made all the way through Writing 39A. It sounds like a long story, right? But now, I just begin my real journey of writing.

I hereby write to you about my progress in achieving the objectives of the course. Most of the lessons learned on becoming an effective communicator in written language are depicted in the assignments as well as the writing projects done in class. I got readers to listen and create the eagerness to read my writings by using rhetorical questions to make the reader identify with the reading, as well as using the different senses in my writing to give the reader the exact experience of the situation or event I talk about.

Through the class, I have developed the ability to capture the reader’s attention at the beginning of writing a text by making them identify with it and feel that the content is meant for them. No one wants to listen to stuff they have no clue about where to apply it. By speaking directly to my readers and appealing to their problems, needs, and ideas, I can communicate more effectively and make them eager to hear what I have to say before I say it.

At the beginning, I was pretty nervous about the new professor of writing class. But let me tell you, Dr. Lance is way more than a professor. The most impressive thing about his class is the inspiration he would give you in class. At the first couple of classes, in order to give us a sense of how to describe food, he let us bring our favorite snack and share them with classmates. How wonderful is it? We wrote an homework about cigarettes before, I almost thought he was going to let us taste cigarettes in class. However, to be honest, this class is not easy but really helpful to our writing ability. And below I will talk about main points where I found help and do progress.

Homework

Most of homework we did in this class might be analyzing others voice. For example, Gustavo Arellano and Jonathan Gold reviews about food and restaurant. Like in HW. 4 TU RQ, after analyzing Gold's review about Chongqing noddles, I was surprised by the allusion and metaphor he used. So nicely and vividly.

"I slipped into one of those fugue states where the ceiling fades away, the crowd disappears and the floor dissolves into fog, until what is left seems like a thousand flavors folding in on themselves, shimmering, a universe unto itself."

Obviously, Dr. Lance would help us analyzing every good sentence we meet. From this kind of homework I learned something that I did not learn in Academic English series before. " how to make my writing more vivid" And we can decorate our writing by using ways like mataphor, allusion, dialogue, authority, etc. Reading Gustavo's review, I learned more about how to change tone, being more confident about what we are familiar with. 

Conference

Conference with Eric and Dr. lance has been an enjoyable time to spend. For example, I was pretty confused how to write a review about a restaurant so long. Hopefully, I got my answer in the tutoring time with eric. For example, in the paragraph below, I tried to make a comparison between different choices of mix we make for our own pasta and so give the restaurant value for attracting readers to read.

"You know what makes it so extraordinary? The balance. Since alfredo is kind of greasy and oily, the pasta must be the neutral part of this combo. Compared to spaghetti with alfredo, fettucini would be more soft. You will not hope to chew pasta like chewing a salty gum. That will be horrible. Thus, in my opinion about making our own pasta, what must be necessary is to balance the flavor with pasta."

The quarter is continuing, and the knowledge is becoming richer. Hope this E-portfolio could bring you to see the progress I am making.