Reflection on Open Letter Draft

In the following blog post I will be reflecting on the peer review and drafting process of my letter. I will be doing this by answering five bullet points from Student's Guide to assess my draft and what I plan to change.

I reviewed the letters of Michael Beiley and Mira Theilmann

Halliwell, Mike, "Mirror Ball" 7/1/14 via Flickr.com

1. Did you demonstrate an ability to think about your writing and yourself as a writer?
          
I think I was a very efficient in communicating what I felt about my own writing and how I viewed myself as a writer. I feel comfortable with the amount I spoke about my personal connection to writing and how I view it as an art form.  

2. Did you provide analysis of your experiences, writing assignments, or concepts you have learned?
          
I did very well to evaluate how I have progressed and how each of the different specific areas we studies impacted my writing and how I view myself as a writer. I didn't look too in depth at my exact assignments, but rather the skills that I gained from each of them as a whole.

3. Did you provide concrete examples from your own writing (either quotes from your writing or rich descriptions of your writing process)?
          
I did not include many direct references to my blog and writing as much as I should have. I completely failed to include any quotes which could have been very useful in a couple of portions. I think it will be very useful to incorporate quote and then provide links to the posts they're a part of (two birds with one stone). 

4. Did you explain why you made certain choices and whether those choices were effective?
           
 I did not look into my choices as much as I did my development. I didn't think that the specific efforts and choices of every single assignment were as important as the growth. In hind sight I think it's important to include the specific choices I've made and why I made them but I'm not sure I will go into extreme detail. 

5. Did you use specific terms and concepts related to writing and the writing process?

I used terminology articulately but not in an overwhelming abundance. I feel confident with how much terminology I used from the course, but I could try to include it more frequently and not just talk about it briefly. I could refer back to terms and topics to make a more fluid letter. 

Draft of Open Letter

In the following blog post I will provide a link to my open letter reflection on my writing, as well as provide my peers with a paragraph regarding the strengths and weaknesses of my draft and what they should edit for.

I'm feeling alright about the content itself, but I'm concerned about the format. For one, I don't know for certain if I need the address element. Those seemed to be present in many of the completed exampled I looked at, but I'm not sure they're needed for the context I'm writing this letter. I'm also a little concerned about the introduction paragraph. Many of the descriptions of semi-formal letters I looked at included an introduction like this, but I'm worried it's not quite right. If I could get comments regarding those and other semi-formal letter conventions, that would be awesome.

HERE is a draft of my open letter.

Harris, Lyn, "Tools of the Trade" 1/26/15 via Flickr.com

Reflecting More on my Writing Experience

In the following blog post I will be responding to 5 questions regarding my growth as a writer in this course and what parts of this course have been most and least influential on me and my writing. 

1. What were the biggest challenges you faced this semester, overall?
       
         The workload of this class was undeniably the most challenging element of this course as a whole. The challenge I faced in the semester in general was the distribution of focus for each course and the time management of them. I was entirely responsible of my work ethic and that was an honest challenge. The work of this class demanded time and I gave it almost too much. I occasionally put in too much time into the extensive assignments of this class, while neglecting others. This course's content was not extremely unfamiliar or daunting, but it was a very new perspective on how to address my work ethic and fluff writing.

2. What did you learn this semester about your own time management, writing and editorial skills?

         I found out thanks to this course that I need to trim down on how much time I give to one writing assignment, as well as how much planning and thought I put into it. That is not to say that this class made me unwillingly cut back of my writing, but opened my eyes to the importance of being short, sweet, and to the point. The class also helped me realize that I can write efficiently and concisely and adapt well to knew forms of writing, provided a good idea of the goal of a piece of writing (so all the planning assignments we were given before producing a final piece)

3. What do you know about the concept of 'genre'? Explain how understanding this concept is central to being a more effective writer.

          After this course, I have a better understanding of the diversity of genres, for one thing. The different forms of news articles, videos, blogs, essays became very extensive after we investigated genres so much. The understanding of how to evaluate a genre, like in this post, this post, and this post, has helped me prepare for writing in a random genre that I may be given in my profession, as well as how to teach it to others. Understanding a genre allows someone unfamiliar with that genre to write effectively and confidently, without losing sight of what they want to communicate, as can sometimes happen when writing in a new form.

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

            The use of bibliographies is a particular skill that I had before entering this course which I refined in this course will be very useful in the future for evaluating and using sources. This class also helped me hone my understanding and skill of evaluating a rhetorical situation, which is necessary in the english discipline. Adaptability to genres will also be an incredibly useful skill which I would like to improve in the future. 

5. What was your most effective moment from this semester in 109H?
 
            I think my most effective moments (I'll say moments because there were multiple of the same moment) would be my peer evaluations. I love peer editing and find it to be beneficial to multiple parties. The peer evaluations of this class helped me to understand the idiosincrqocies of my own writing, as well as expose myself to other peoples ideas in their work, their styles, and their insight. Peer editing makes me feel helpful, informed, and improved. I edited many people in different ways and all of them had great benefits, like here, and here.

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

            When it comes to my least effective moment from this semester, I would have to say my reflections and comments were not always well executed and I often failed to see their benefit. The only assignments I ever left incomplete were several read/respond/reflects. I would have to describe that as ineffective.

Bui, Annie, "Growth" 10/20/12 via Flickr.com

Revisiting My Writing Process

In the following blog post I will be reflecting and responding to my blog posts 1.10 and 1.12; how my writing and time management has changed and just how I see my writing progressing in the future and how it'll impact my career.

In my blog post 1.10, "My Writing Process", I claimed that I was a heavy revisor and occasionally a heavy planner. In the past semester, I would say I fell more into the heavy planning area. This was still very familiar to my and my process of writing. The course itself demanded much more planning than any other course I've been in, but there was still a great focus on revising. The focus of each deadline had a tendency to promote planning more than anything, but for every assignment there was an entire week or two devoted to writing and revising. It was a nice balance of the writing process I had been so familiar with, but with a slight shift in focus from revision to initial planning. This has helped me realize the convenience of good planning so it can cut down on the revision process itself. The planning and examination of the project has helped me realize the importance of understanding the context and purpose of my essays. Since I intend to study and teach english, this is an incredibly useful skill.

In my blog post 1.12, "Calendar Reflection", I was relatively true to what I expect from myself when it came to the actual execution of my work; sitting down and doing large, extended periods of work, rather than doing little things throughout the week. However, I failed to anticipate the work and demand of other classes and fell short in distributing my work well on the days that I wanted to. In truth, the Tuesdays and Thursdays I thought I would be extremely productive became my friends and family days. I was right about using Saturday afternoons for publication. I was truly rather dreadful with my time management of smaller assignments, waiting until the last moment. I do think that the stressfulness of close calls and late work have done well to tell me that it really is terrible to procrastinate, but I can still tell that it will be a tricky habit to kick. Nevertheless, I will try, due to the importance of initiative in the workplace.

Cummins, Gary "Infinity o'clock" 2/19/12 via Flickr.com