Reflecting More on My Writing Experiences

THE END IS NEAR. Continuing to prepare for the final, I will be answering questions from my fans (jk just from Sean but I feel all fancy and egotistical answering all of these questions about myself) about some of my experiences in 109H. And also, as it is now December it is socially acceptable for me to post this picture of my dog in a Santa hat. Behold.

Mattox, Bailey "Sammy Clause" 12/25/14 via photos.

1. Biggest challenges this semester.

The biggest challenge this semester for me was finding a routine for homework time. I am used to just doing homework when I get home, but all of a sudden there was too much to just do that and I was getting overwhelmed constantly. I wasn't a happy camper at all. But eventually I realized that it was more effective for me to hang out with friends and go to games and have fun in the early evening and then do homework in the late evening and between classes. 

2. What did you learn about your time management and editorial skills?

I have learned through this semester that its all about experimenting to find what works. At first I was stuck in the rut of my old habits, but once I was able to let go and try new things, I had much more time.  But like I said before, I am very easy to bribe, and so that helped me become much better at time management. Not just pounding through ALL of the homework at once and interspersing it with breaks really helped me become effective. As far as editing, I never would have guessed that I would be able to give the criticism that I did to people I hardly knew. I think it was really good for me to have that experience, because it made me realize that I can give constructive and meaningful advice to most anyone, and give my honest opinion (while still not being mean and offensive). 

3. What do you know about the concept of genre? How is understanding this concept central to becoming a better writer? 

Genre to me is a matter of understanding the whole situation of the prompt you are writing for. I think that it includes knowing your audience, your purpose, your conventions and style, and basically everything that makes a good piece of writing. To me genre is directly tied to purpose and all of those other really important things that make your writing effective. So in regards to that, knowing your genre is essential in creating a piece of writing that does everything you want it to do for your readers.

4. What skills from this course might you use/develop further in the next few years of college coursework?

You know what, I feel like I actually did develop a lot of relevant skills in this course, It didn't feel useless and arbitrary like a lot of classes. For one, my planning skills have skyrocketed, and I really hope that outside of this class I am able to maintain and implement the planning process I was introduced to in this course. On top of that, I feel like I also really learned how to really understand the purpose of my writing and cater to the audience, and this is always going to be relevant whenever I am writing anything in the future. And I really learned how to step back and say "wait, what do I want them to feel?" Also I think I have gotten a lot better at sharing my opinions even through class discussions, and definitely in writing. I think that this will be really helpful later on, and I want to continue to expand on this stating of my opinion. 

5. What was your most effective moment from 109H? 

I think my most effective moment from this course was probably the planning I did for Project 3. I think it was all extremely important to the production of my final draft, and I felt like I really got in depth with it. It actually made putting Project 3 together pretty easy, which was fantastic. It also helped me to just have a really good grasp on the project overall (pending I guess, I don't have my grade for that project yet sooooo we'll see).

6. What was your least effective moment in 109H?

My planning in the beginning of project 1 was just awful. I hardly cared, and I didn't yet understand the importance and helpfulness of planning. Particularity when we had to do the annotated bibliographies in the beginning, those blog posts were pretty useless the way I did them. If I had done more little planning things before then maybe I would have been better about it, but the way it was I just didn't understand yet. And those gosh darn Clarity and Punctuation posts. The first rounds weren't bad, and I got to read on topics I may not have known SO much about. But the SECOND rounds just felt utterly pointless. I felt like during those posts I was once again having to force myself to just get it done instead of actually thinking about it like the rest of the course taught me to.