INTRODUCTION

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Cowboy culture was once at the heart of the Palm Springs aesthetic

     Glancing back on my accomplishments in this course, I have to admit how much more capable and confident I feel now that I have grown and matured as a writer. In all honesty, this class was a lot more challenging than I had originally thought and expected it would be. Packed with various important essay assignments, several discussions, and multiple peer reviews, it initially did not seem like it would require a great amount of effort. However, just after the first week of class, I realized how wrong I had been. I realized that this class would be one of my most demanding courses of the Winter Quarter.

     Every single assignment had led up to our class’ overall theme - the Western genre. To tell the truth, the moment I learned this would be the concept we were going to focus on for the course, I was not entirely looking forward to it. Westerns had never stuck out as something I would be immediately drawn to or interested in. I additionally comprehended that I had never really thought or considered reading or watching artifacts of genres about Westerns. To me, I grew up associating cowboys, settlers, Western frontiers, and the Wild West with the Western category. It was quite shocking to me when I learned how wrong I was about what the division actually represented, as well as how many stereotypes about the genre had been infiltrated into my life as a child.

     The difference between Westerns and Neo-Westerns was a whole other thought I never even got the chance to ponder prior to coming to UCI and taking this writing course. Often, thinking of both categories, many tend to think that there is no major distinction between the two - “many” being me. I did not entirely understand how one large genre could be made up of several components. As I further educated myself on the topic, I learned that Neo-Westerns are made up of more late-contemporary and modern aspects compared to the typical Western genre. For both my Rhetorical Analysis Essay, as well as my RIP Project and Essay, I make the argument that stereotypes regarding the Western genre are not always true and exact, and how both the book, No Country For Old Men, and the film, The Power of the Dog, are Neo-Westerns.

     Applying the knowledge I learned from this course into my assignments and this E-Portfolio had been quite simple to me since I felt very well-prepared in knowing what I was stronger at in this class and what I needed to work on (my weaknesses). I noticed how much broader my vocabulary became and how my terminology within that vocabulary had advanced. As an example, in my Rhetorical Analysis, the essay I wrote on the book, No Country For Old Men, and my argument of how it subverts traditional Western characteristics, I utilize words like, “rendition” and “convoluted,” which are words I would not have normally used, even so knew the meaning of, if it had not been for this class. I recognized that my strengths as a writer had been perseverance, meaning, I can easily overcome writer’s block, as well as staying focused because more often than not, I am able to catch any errors I make right away. And lastly, I would say a strength of mine would be my word choices and their versatility, since I try to avoid repeating myself with terms too often. Nevertheless, repetition can also be a very profound weakness of mine. One correction that I have been given in the past is that sometimes, my essays or assignments can get too redundant or wordy. I always try to work harder and harder to fix this problem, and I believe I have slowly been getting better at solving it. 

     Furthermore, in this writing course, I learned how to manage my time in a more efficient manner. In the past, I would work profusely in one assignment and then have no energy to finish any other work I had to do. Now, thanks to this course, I’ve learned methods of working and taking small breaks in between so that I can complete more in a smaller amount of time, rather than working on one thing and not having the motivation to complete anything after that due to feeling so drained. I’ve also learned how to be more open to peer reviews and group discussion. Ever since I was younger, I would regularly prefer to work independently because I was anxious to talk to and interact with others. I was extremely introverted and liked working on things on my own instead of getting help from other individuals. In this class, I was able to make several friends and receive an exceedingly large amount of feedback from them, which had been very helpful. Because of this class, I grew more open to taking in and listening to other people’s opinions and ideas.

     Additionally in this class, I learned how to believe in something and not be judged or convinced to conform to something else. For this reason, college has already been extremely different from my high school experience. I found my own voice. It took some time, but in just ten weeks, I figured out how to give reasoning to my arguments, opinions, and ideas, as well as how to reach and touch my audience/reader. Not only was it applying ethos, pathos, and logos, but it took a solid understanding of explaining not only my own logic, but reasoning by why the alternate side has the ability to not be correct.

     For me, I would say I was fairly successful in convincing and persuading my reader to side with my arguments. More specifically, in my RIP Project, where I took the part of a credited fim reviewer and attempted to convince my audience that the movie, The Power of the Dog, was a classified film of the Neo-Western genre. For instance, in that particular assignment, I claim, “The film incorporates various Neo-Western characteristics and defies classic stereotypes one would expect to see in a Western movie. These are late-contemporary and modern factors such as new values, a dark, dramatic, and disturbing plot, the setting and location of where the story had actually been filmed, the music, and a singular, prominent female character. Jane Campion intuitively uses these aspects in order to draw and intrigue audiences of our generation into desiring to know what happens at the end of the film.” I go on to support each of these statements, such as “The haunting tale additionally includes the idea of homosexuality - an untraditional feature that is not popularly conveyed in the stereotypical Western genre. Even though the film does not explicitly state the sexuality of Phil, tiny hints that are demonstrated throughout the film help confirm this information. Campion portrays the queer ingredient as subtle and as a concept one can either grasp instantly or not, unlike other admired Western films such as Brokeback Mountain.”

     Another thing I learned, which made this class much more straightforward, had been implementing and exerting tactics and proper formation, like knowing how to correctly cite a source or format an essay in either an MLA or APA format. In this class, we primarily focused on MLA formatting. I additionally grasped onto more ways in editing and revising assignments that had been further coherent and methodical. Particularly, in both my Rhetorical Analysis Essay and RIP Project/Essay, as well as some of my CR and RIP Exercises, I had comprehensively worked on accomplishing how to outline a draft before putting it together as an essay all at once. I learned that jotting down main points and the most significant information can help and go a great way in making my end result of an assignment of a higher quality. This also incorporated adapting diverse techniques into my regular routines for preparing to compose an essay. The concepts I acquired skills in can now be classified into more useful information due to my experiences in this course, which can be clearly depicted in a piece of work. Besides, this class sparked various innovative approaches in me and encouraged me to examine writing in a way I have not before. I have discovered multiple perspectives that I never even thought to consider before and because of this new attitude, this area of writing has only just sprung the range I may face in the subject of writing. 

     After looking at the E-Portfolio Rubric under the E-Portfolio agenda for this course, the grade that I would predict for this course and myself, would be an A-. I feel as though it would be an A- since I received a full scores (5/5) on each of my Critical Reading (CR) Reflective Exercises and RIP Exercises, full scores on the quizzes on the text, Fire in the Hole!, No Country For Old Men, and Brokeback Mountain, and full scores on the First Drafts of both the Rhetorical Analysis Essay and RIP Project. Over and above that, I also received high scores on the Final Drafts of those assignments. As stated in the rubric, it says, (a superior portfolio) “Shows exceptional and consistent ownership, awareness, and initiative; able to produce critical, thoughtful self-evaluation, and to use this self-evaluation productively by identifying skills that need work as well as skills s/he has mastered. Knows when to ask for help and how to ask specific questions, and s/he makes and can explain careful choices in order to produce purposeful, confident writing for an academic audience.” As I mentioned before, my strengths in writing have always been perseverance, staying focused, and diverse word choice. However, my weaknesses, once more, are organized writing and redundancy.

     This Writing 39B Course is a class that will be impossible to forget, seeing as it taught me to the greatest extent in such a short and limited amount of time, and I am so glad I got to return in-person for most of it and participate in this improvement in my writing. I do not think that ever in my life or educational experiences, there has been a class such as this one, where I learned about several ways to refine my writing and also got to work on myself. Not only did this course guide me in becoming a better writer, but as tacky as it sounds, it guided me into becoming a better individual. Simply learning not to always believe stereotypes, and to stop myself from unconsciously stereotyping as well, is something I will continue to think about even years after this course ends. The meaning behind the inquiry goes so much deeper than I would have ever even assumed. Similar to the endless process of advancing to imaginative literature, I know I yet have to search for more continuously until I reach the intentions of my views. Everything that I have left to do is to simply sustain in employing the things I have acquired and use it to think about the world itself differently, in a way I could never have before this course. I am grateful for choosing to take this class this quarter, and I am looking forward to what’s ahead! I hope you enjoy my E-Portfolio!

4 books to glow up my 2021 year on We Heart It

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