Haley O'Brien UWRT 1103
Reflections:
Daybook: I found it really helpful to have a notebook like this. I always start any writing assignment with a random rant or just some thoughts scribbled down on a page, and this was a great place to do that and to find things to draw from. Most of it was barely legible and would probably be incoherent to other people, but I actually used it a lot when I was starting my inquiry project and literacy narrative. I used it as a place to write down anything that came to mind, even if I knew it would never go anywhere else. Blank word documents can be really intimidating, and this was a great starting point. It definitely reinforced how important the planning part of the writing process is, and I’ve found myself doing a lot more preliminary writing like zero drafts, charts, etc. since I first started my daybook.
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Blog: All of these assignments made me think a lot. It was nice to have a prompt to go off; that doesn't happen so much in college. I struggled at first to really incorporate multimedia into them, but it definitely got easier with practice. All of our topics were very open-ended and thought provoking. I liked how rather than just a regular essay, these were posted online, because sometimes when I didn’t know where to start I could just look at what other people had said. I don’t get much practice with writing as personal as this was, and it was a nice change of pace to just be talking about my thoughts and not having to worry about being right or wrong. These really helped reinforce the idea that writing is meant to be more of a conversation, especially since we had to comment on each others’ blogs, too. Overall I really liked this aspect of this class, and honestly looked forward to writing them. They all made me think about myself as a person and a writer in ways I never really had, and explaining it to the virtual world like that made me understand myself a lot more as well.
Literacy Narrative: This project was probably my favorite, because it was the hardest for me to write. First of all, I loved the topic; it was so interesting to analyze the concept of literacy, and I really think about it in a completely different way now. I had thought about it as merely being able to absorb and relay information, but I think it goes a lot deeper than that. I think understanding is much more about processing and reflecting on information than comprehending it, and should lead to something new. I am really happy with the topic I chose for this piece, because I think Henry perfectly embodies everything I was trying to say about that. I have tried to write so many different things about him and how much he means to me, and none of them really satisfied me as much as this one did. I had struggled to explain why he is so interesting and unique and important to me, but this context made it extremely easy; he is unique because he understands things differently than anyone else I’ve ever met, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get them. This piece also challenged me to explain my emotions, as usually I write about things much less personally involved. Henry is so important to me, and I feel like the quality of my writing needs to match how important he is to me. I don’t think anything I’ve ever written about him has done him justice before this piece. I feel like I understand my relationship with him a lot better after analyzing it in such a way, and can’t wait to share it with him when I get home for the summer. This was a very easy assignment for me to connect to, and I learned a lot about telling my own story from writing it.
Inquiry Project: This project taught me that I have way too much to say. I’m usually pretty good at coming up with a strong thesis and making all my points build up to it, but this open-ended approach to this topic led me to many more questions than answers. I think that was the point, but it made it a bit difficult to know where to stop. I read the parlor theory a few times when I felt like I needed some direction in this, and I feel like this project more than any other reinforced that for me. It was really interesting to talk about something so significant and real with this approach; I liked how it was more about presenting my take on the whole situation to stimulate conversation rather than to end an argument. It also showed me how different it is to write a research paper versus create a digital composition. I had a lot of big paragraphs with way too many numbers and facts and things like that at first, and this genre of writing allowed me to break those up and present this information in a more interesting manner. I feel like it made a lot of sense to digitize my particular topic, because it’s something that’s so relevant in the world and media today, and that’s how things are presented in the media. This project helped show me that writing can be an exploration of a topic, not just a full assessment of it, and it will definitely lead me to approach future writing topics with that in mind.