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Transferring What I Knew 

The journey through my writing experience in 39C has been akin to a rollercoaster; by no means was it a smooth transition from my high school AP writing courses nor was easy to juggle the class’ expectations of me. I knew only the skills learned four years prior in a high school setting and within those skills my comfort level sat with literary analysis. Rarely was I required to use research or argumentative writing in my classes and rarer did I choose the option when given it. When I did, I relied heavily on emotional emphasis or pathos. I felt stylistically more at ease when using emotional strategies and introducing anecdotes to better the ‘personalization’ of my topic.

I included a large amount of these skills in my Week 1 Self-Assessment when summarizing and identifying the key issues in the sources provided to me. As always, emotions were a strong point in my writing. However, my time during this quarter has taught me that context matters and so does the evidence I provide it. I am able to add anecdotal evidence in order to make the argument emotionally charged, an emotionally charged argument has little weight without proper research to back it up. This was most prominently seen in the beginning of my CP, which utilized a scene from Bill Clinton’s presidency. It focused mainly on apologizing to the victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which was already incorrect. The introduction was strong and liked by Professor Collins but it lacked the proper transitioning to the modern struggles of healthcare to truly be as powerful as it could. The weight I had generated in the introduction of my essay with the anecdote was all but lost due to clumsy writing and researching skills. It was only in the AP that I fixed these mistakes, ensuring that my anecdote in the beginning held power and continued to do so throughout the essay. The cohesiveness of my argument was something I struggled with heavily, especially in terms of my Contexts Project.  More often than not, it seemed as if I was merely jamming together parts that did not fit or were not written well enough to connect with each other. Specifically, my statistics regarding COVID-19 and poverty related to the medical profession were loosely strung together. I later improved this in my Advocacy Project as well. I later improved on both of these in my Advocacy Project.

As I did not take any research-heavy or writing-heavy classes during this quarter, I did not utilize the skills learned in the course in other classes. Yet the lessons of this class were not at all lost to me. My perspective of research writing changed completely and I have a newfound respect for those who are able to spend multiple days compiling evidence and synthesizing that evidence into a cohesive argument. The process of realizing my research was flawed during my CP and then rebounding in my AP was incredibly difficult but enlightening. 

My Composing Process

My composing process was not entirely thought out, which was especially obvious in my Contexts Project. I often doubted my choices and the methods I used to synthesize the many sources I had found. It was mostly through trial and error that I learned that strong research and a good understanding of your argument through your sources was necessary to create a cohesive essay. My searches for sources often included scholarly databases and keywords. I aimed for academic journals, PDFs, and research papers instead of overall articles. For the Contexts Project, I made a point to highlight anecdotes and evidence from families affected by the events I chose. My initial draft took a wrong turn, as I mistakenly thought the essay revolved more on historical context due to the pre-writings we had. I failed to focus on more modern sources and healthcare’s flawed institution as it persisted today. Although I received feedback from the professor in regards to my annotated bibliography, I misunderstood it as needing a brief modern discussion rather than an entire revision of the image I had in mind for the essay. As a result, my first rough draft was severely flawed and lacked confidence. Instead of a streamlined writing process, I found myself more so haphazardly glueing together puzzle pieces that did not fit. My scope was too narrowed on the past, especially Tuskegee. I had pieced together my annotated bibliography entirely around the impacts of Tuskegee as well as its pasts. As stated earlier, my anecdotal introduction revolved around Clinton’s address towards the study’s survivors. My first drafts had little focus on the contemporary problem, often pointed out by my professor. This was later resolved by adding COVID-19 statistics and its impact on black Americans, who are especially vulnerable. I found myself having a much better time with research and focus on my Advocacy Project. Taking into account the lessons learned from the CP, I readied myself to take on the AP with a new approach. I would now consider sources from more modern times, experts, and valued more heavily how that source mattered in terms of my essay. I would not blindly research, I would research under my argument specifically.

Fig 2. Photo of one of my CP annotated sources, which focused primarily on the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.

As a result, my evidence for the AP consisted more of articles and speeches from experts in the field of healthcare and written pieces featuring many researched components. Think more of studies, research papers and journals.

Fig 3. My Advocacy Project presentationLinks to an external site., which allowed me to better organize and visualize the goals I had planned for my essay.

Through both essays, I knew that I was to tackle healthcare in a sort of ‘onion’ or ‘layered’ approach. Healthcare was too broad of a topic for me to merely cover one aspect. Its flaws found themselves in almost every branch of life--every disparity led and related to the other. From the Advocacy Project, I learned that creating a visual or presentation outline of my essay was more effective for me than just planning on a document. The AP was more comfortable for me as I understood that my initial plans were approved by the professor. I had much more confidence as well, which showed in my draft, and was able to implement the anecdote that I usually employ.

Rhetoric, Argumentation, & Multimodal Communication

Creating both my CP and AP gave me a better understanding of argumentation and persuasion as a whole. A proper argument needs proper context in order for it to be effective and a claim cannot be left without analysis or evidence. Nor could an argument simply be analyzed without going beyond the surface of it. My research, especially for the Advocacy Project, gave me a clear image as to how to format my essay and what ‘layers’ to approach first. The solutions to healthcare disparities were found primarily in my research and what I understood about the issue in my CP. It was painstakingly obvious that healthcare was not as big of a topic in the face of police brutality protests, especially compared to the previous election in which healthcare for all was a glaring issue made obvious by Bernie Sanders. My writing was to explain to my audience that the police system was not the only institution that was flawed or discriminatory towards black Americans. The anecdote and the summary I had in mind was to be powerful, drawing a conclusion that diverted from common knowledge. George Floyd was a name that needed little to no context and the movement that blossomed from his death was known to anyone who had access to the media in the past few months. Yet there was no focus on healthcare, even as politics led to the upcoming election. The focus on Biden for 2020 was in response to the outrage surrounding the police; healthcare had all but faded from the media’s view despite its growing importance in the pandemic.

Fig 4. My introduction paragraph’s ‘end portion’, which drew my audience’s attention from police brutality to the pressing issue of disparities in the American healthcare system.

I then delved deeper into the obvious solution, accessible healthcare for all through legislation, and pointed out the obvious flaws in that solution. This was the reason behind my focus on Medicaid and the urgency of it to be expanded in Southern states, as well as how easily those states were able to resist the demands of legislation. I needed my audience to understand that there were more ways to alleviate the issues in healthcare than the elective effort. This became the framework for introducing various strategies, such as patient self-advocacy, including more black physicians, and ultimately, rewriting the medical system as a whole to reduce disparities. Finding the speeches and pieces written by Taiwo Alonge tied my writing together; I was heavily inspired by the abrasive and demanding style of his words. There was urgency and accusation that I wanted to get across to my readers. It resembled the healthcare movement as a whole and the urgency behind reforming or rewriting it. The disparities within the healthcare system towards black Americans could not be more obvious during COVID-19 and the solutions necessary to combat it would take years to implement. Generations of doctors, policy makers, and medical schools had to properly uphold anti-racism in order for healthcare to be truly equal.

Fig 5. Quotes from Taiwo Alonge in my Advocacy Project. They held the power that I wanted my essay to exude.

The tasks asked of healthcare advocates were expansive and difficult; it was necessary that I translated this onto paper.

Revision

Revisions made to my papers were largely due to the edits or suggestions my peers and professor gave me. For my CP, the revisions given to me played an incredibly important role in developing new arguments as my initial one had the wrong focus. My AP was a bit simpler, requiring more expansion on topics and more context. I heavily valued the criticism given to me for both projects and often used them to revise large portions of my essay. My strategy was to go from revision to revision, starting at the beginning of the writing piece and working my way through the end. I would then read the essay multiple times as a whole in order to fix any issues with cohesion or transitioning. I kept the goals I had for my essay in mind, preserving portions that I believed furthered my goals and almost completely rewriting parts that did not. Having multiple drafts of my essay was beneficial in seeing what was being improved on, what had satisfied expectations, and what needed further explanation. More often than not I found myself lengthening my piece and adding additional paragraphs; revision was not limited to minor grammar errors but also consisted of rewrites and reformatting.

Fig 6. Before and after of one of my AP paragraphs, in which I reformatted the evidence to better flow and analysis. I also added more context.

In terms of critiquing the work of my peers, I used a strategy that kept the goals of the overall projects in mind. By going through my classmates’ abstracts, I identified the topic and the goals that they outlined in their essay. Following this, I would evaluate whether or not their evidence and synthesis served to fulfill the goals they listed. I went off the reviews I received, pointing out spots where I thought my peers could improve. My reviews focused on editing the essay to better the essay and the topic as a whole. Seeing the edits that I suggested to others allowed me to identify the flaws in my own essays as it helped me anchor myself on what I was to expect out of my own writing.

Fig 7. Suggestions from my professor on my AP project. I added additional notes after the discussion conference we had in order to remember what I needed to do to better my essay.

The revision process as a whole was the most helpful part of both projects to me. Prior to the peer edits, I had hazier visions of what I wanted to discuss about healthcare that were remedied by the critiquing process. In my case, I improved drastically in my AP in comparison to my CP project; I improved in my writing skills over the entire quarter, not just over one project. Due to this course, I believe that I now have a firmer grasp of what is necessary to compose a proper research paper.

Under the guidance of both my peers and professor, I know exactly what is expected of me and what I should do in case another large research paper is thrown at me. As for my writing career in the future, I’m not entirely sure if I’ll go out of my way to research and compile evidence but I will most definitely employ all the synthesis skills in any argumentative piece. I aim for all my pieces in the future to hold meaning and a powerful ethos, as well as to be able to have compelling arguments and research that serve only to add onto this power. Writing should matter and this class has taught me exactly how to ensure that my writing did.

Thank You!

I would like to thank all of my peer reviewers, the Discord group, and the professor for helping me through my struggles! Everyone mentioned made the class much easier to handle and alleviated a lot of confusion or residual stress I had regarding the assignments. Special thanks to Professor Collins for helping me climb out of the hole I dug for myself in the first half of the class and ensuring that I succeeded for the second half.