Make Your Own History
The Journey Is The Destination
Growth is inevitable. Over the past 10 weeks, I have grown not only as a writer but also as a communicator. I knew one of our main objectives in our course was to be an improved communicator, and I now know what they truly meant. I was challenged to think differently and criticize the world around us, which was an aspect I was never experienced before. Though, it was definitely worth the while.
Planning and Explanatory Writings
Watch & Annotate Lecture: Jean Kilbourne, Killing Us Softly
I was to annotate a lecture by Jean Kilbourne, Killing Us Softly 4. I had never annotated a video before, so I was a bit lost at first. Though, after completing my annotations, I had a better understanding of the themes within the lectures. This would be connected to the course objective of Improve your written literacy, digital literacy, and overall communication skills across several media and Develop habits for engaged reading.
Week 2 Exploratory Writing: Killing Us Softly 4 & Looking into the Magic Mirror
In Week 2, the explanatory writing instructions seemed a bit daunting as we had to write 4 paragraphs, but this assignment taught me a lot. I ultimately learned to break up my writing sessions into separate days instead of completing it all in one sitting. This strategy paid great dividends for me as it lessened the stress of the assignment and also helped me gain confidence in facing more difficult tasks. It was definitely a lesson of adaptability to understand and keep myself accountable towards my plan, which satisfies the objective of Flexibility.
Peer Review
Week 2 Exploratory Writing: Killing Us Softly 4 & Looking into the Magic Mirror
Again, from Week 2's explanatory writing, I found the best advice from a peer review. It was my favorite because it both highlighted my strengths and weaknesses of my work while also giving a suggestion of how to enhance my writing. It made me realize I have a habit of writing run-on sentences. Instead, I could just split the two different ideas into two sentences, so readers don't get confused.
Week 4 Exploratory Writing: Star Wars and Gender
I believe the best advice I've given in a peer review was in Week 4's explanatory writing. I highlighted the strengths of the annotations and offered advice on how to improve it. I was able to relate to the thinking process as we both had watched the same film, which allows me to better understand what the message is behind the writing. Thus, these two examples of peer reviews have helped me Understand the importance of self-review. As writers, it's essential to understand how a reader interprets your work.
Self Review
Self Review of Full-Length Essay Draft
In Week 9, we were to review our own draft of the course essay. Initially, I thought my draft was already well-written. However, as I read closely, I realized I had made some formatting errors, specifically in-text citations. During the drafting process, I knew there were a couple of mistakes when I tried to incorporate outside sources, but I never fixed them. Since this essay is MLA formatted, the in-text citations have to follow MLA rules as well where the parenthetical citation ends the sentence.
Along with the in-text citation errors, I also noticed I lacked trasnsitions between paragraphs. It was also mentioned by one of my groupmates during peer reviews. I decided to write each paragraph separately while drafting my essay, so that explains the lack of cohesiveness. I would most likely have to add a foreshadow or introduction before diving straight into film analysis.
Overall, the revision stage of writing an essay is critical when the drafting stage didn't go smoothly. I struggled my way through the first draft, so reviewing my own work was especially helpful in challenging my own viewpoints to strengthen my arguments. Revision is a crucial aspect of writing, which is part of the course objective: Understand the importance of having a process when you are composing a sophisticated text.
Revision
As previously mentioned, one revision I had to make was having every source integration fit MLA style. There were two sources where I had to revise; the first one was pretty easy, but the second one gave me some trouble. I was initially overthinking how to fix the mistake throughout these revisions, but I soon realized I don't have to re-write the whole sentence. It's much easier to just rephrase parts of the quote and then include the details I didn't rephrase.
Another notable revision I made was to add a quote from Sharp and Wade's video on social construction. Originally, I wrote my own definition of social construction, but having the direct definition from experts carries much more value. It also adds another source to which readers can refer to. The Sharp and Wade video was definitely a great foundation for what we studied in this course.
