Elena's ENGL 1010 Projects !
Project 1:
Literary Narrative
Within our first project, we were tasked with writing an essay about our own literary journeys. For my own, I ended up choosing to write about my family and eventually my teacher's influence on my current literacy. Although I did struggle to write this essay in the beginning, scrapping a total of 3 drafts overall, I find myself rather proud of how mine turned out in the end. When we were first given the paper, I was a bit nervous on how my essay would turn out in comparison to my classmate's essays and further, in comparison to their experiences. I ended up going through tons of my memories I forgot about with my mom to try and find a noteworthy enough memory to start from, and eventually had enough to flesh out the essay that resulted. Although I do feel it could've been a bit less formal, and less adherent to the same parameters mentioned within it that I still struggle with not automatically straying towards, I am proud of the essay that I ended up with here, and I think it may be my best essay this semester.
Project 2:
Interview
For our second project, our class had to conduct an interview with someone we didn't know very well about their literacy journey and write an essay from their perspective. This, I feel, was one of the most challenging prompts the class offered us. I myself don't particularly socialize often with those I don't know, so asking someone their life story seemed a daunting task, especially if I was to be asking a near stranger. However, once passing that obstacle, it became clear to me that it is an incredibly eye opening experience to not only try to see things from another person's perspective, but write from it as well. There was certainly a lot of struggle with writing this piece, as I didn't want to overstep and write something that the interviewee wouldn't agree with or wouldn't want mentioned. In the end, I believe that it turned out alright, and it became a work that I am proud of.
Project 3:
Genre Analysis
Our third project within this class was a genre analysis, by far the hardest project for me. I struggled a lot with getting this completed, only really turning it in at the last minute. I mainly focus on the arts and people in my writing, so being told I couldn't focus on either of them, but instead had to focus on mundane things like signs or websites was certainly a challenge. I ended up getting it done in the end, but I'm not certain that my work here compares greatly to my other works. I would say that this is certainly the work that I am the least proud of, at the least. That being said, I did enjoy the challenge that it posed, felt that it was a valuable learning experience to put this essay together.
Invention Project:
Rhetoric Zine
This rhetoric zines was one of the first invention works that we did in this class, and was for me one of the most memorable. I recall that I had not done anything this creative with my learning in a very long time, and that this intrigued me that the class was using art mediums to learn about rhetoric and English devices. I enjoyed this assignment and our other zine assignment greatly, and wanted to included it here as for me it was the most interesting invention work we had.
Please click here to view my semester reflection.
Reflection on classwork and my projects
When I went into this semester, I had originally believed that I had a fairly good grasp of English and its writing rules, but ultimately this semester has broadened my horizons greatly and shown me all new ways to write and see the world. When the first project began, I found myself lost, as I was used to rigid structure and strict rules, so the prompt giving us the freedom to decide what to write and how to write it ultimately had me stumped. I ended up rewriting my essay a total of 3 times before I was happy with the end result, and upon meeting with our teacher, I was given the sound advice of revising my essay to sound less stiff and more fluid. This ultimately became my overall goal throughout the semester, though I questioned how to do it quite a bit. Though as of writing I still have not figured it out, I feel certain that this class has given me the tools to solve the issue over time and discover myself as a writer in the process. The second project was an interview project, and though it was difficult, it ended up answering the question that I had at the beginning of “how can we write from another’s perspective without crossing their boundaries?”. This project helped me see things from another point of view and ultimately, I believe it helped my writing in the long run as I learned an entirely new style of writing through it. On the third project, the open-ended prompt of writing a genre analysis on a non-art non-person subject was extremely difficult for me to do, and ultimately, I ended up struggling to write it up until the very final deadline. Throughout this semester, I realized that time management is a strong necessary factor in any writing process, especially one for classes. Besides time management, I also developed a system of revising based on rewriting my essays over and over again in order to steadily improve them and work out any flaws that may be hiding within. This system has worked through all four projects within this class, and I feel that it is one of the keys to my writing process being successful in the end. Aside from that, I feel that oftentimes, taking a look back at your work once time has passed has proved time and time again to be extremely beneficial to me, as it can provide a new perspective on my work and help me see errors I may have missed or corrections I may wish to make that I would have not considered previously. Overall, I believe that a strong revising technique is key to a successful writing process and a good writing product or outcome, and for myself it is the most important aspect of my work behind the writing aspect itself that adds to the character of my writing and the overall feel of any of my writing pieces.