Herhold 1 Brian Herhold Professor Douglas UWRT 1101-090 3 October 2014 Midterm Reflection My daybook allows me to become a better writer because it allows me to track my progress, interpretation, and development as I move through my writing class. When looking at the quality, depth and development of my daybook, at the moment I feel that it is at a“B” level. I gave myself a “B” because it seems to be lacking rigorous thoughts and interpretations. [often look back on what I wrote during class while we had a timed variting session and I think that I did not think deeply enough. My writing looked shallow because I wasn’t making as many connections to things that were not deliberately stated. ‘An example of this can be seen when I wrote my interpretation on the slam poem called “21”. At first I thought the poem was about the negative effects of alcohol at different years of this boy's life. After writing for alittle while I came to the conclusion that the dad’s alcoholism developed as the boy went through his life. He only began to realize the effects of alcohol on him and his family as he aged. He did pot realize how it tore his family apart when he was young, but he realizes the negative effects as he aged. I believe that the effort put into my daybook is above average because most of my daybook entries are lengthy and thought out well. I can improve my daybook by providing examples that support my writing. I think that if | add more rigorous thoughts to my writing it willHerhold 2 improve. I believe that the best way to improve my writing is to continue to write for extra praie, A de doo —~ Participation in class is very important because it a major part of our learning and understanding. Without participation, we are not engaged and we cannot learn as much. T believe that my participation is at an “A” level. I have always arrived on time and I am prepared to leam. I have a positive attitude toward leaming and I ask questions when I do not understand. I have answered questions numerous times and by doing this I have helped others learn. I stay engaged regardless of what the assignment is. I oftentimes find myself leading others especially when we are doing group or partner work. An example \ of this comes from when we were doing our slam poetry. I put out a few ideas to the ¥ group and we all came together to figure out what theme we liked best. I believe that if I Just sat there and waited for someone else to put out the ideas, our slam would not have a central theme and it would have fallen apart. When we are working in pairs for small ‘group bookwork, I tend to offer suggestions to my partner to make his response more rigorous and meaningful. When the response is lacking detail or explanation, I ask them what they think they can add to it to make it more rigorous, Without an extra push from others, we don’t achieve as much as on our own. 1 believe that I am ahead of others when it comes to my literacy. During my high school years, I have read, summarized and presented a lot of newspaper articles for various classes. In my AP economics class I read about how the factors of production have influenced prices, demand, and sales. In my AP biology class, I researched how to tell the difference between something that is considered living and something that non- living. I have read a lot of articles on our bodies’ ability regulate what goes in and out ofHerhold 3 us. [have leamed a lot about how our bodies repair ourselves, how cancer forms and how to prevent cancerous cells from forming. I have also read quite a few books and poems in my high school English classes. I remember having to interpret and present summaries of the books I read. For example, I had to present a lot of different Sherlock Holmes stories to my class. I developed a very strong understanding of these stories incase anyone asked! questions or did not understand the interpretation. I have found that my vocabulary and rigor of my writing is not as good because I do not study a lot of vocabulary words anymore, [also think that my ability to present to an audience is weak and needs work. I need to learn how to be a better public speaker so that my audience can learn a lot from what I am saying. I need to learn how to interpret something from a different perspective and I need to lear how to persuade others in my writing. One question I have is “How should I write when I am trying to persuade others to think similarly?” oe If Thad to give myself an overall grade thus far, I would give ao “BI received 3 B’s on my “This I Believe” paper, so I think that reflects how I am doing in the class, I believe that there is always room for improvement when it comes to writing. I believe that through more practice on writing with rigor, I will be able to write “A” | papers. I believe that my interpretations of videos and stories could be deeper and more meaningful. I think that I can better express myself as a writer by adding more examples and how they connect to the topie of discussion. At the end of the semester I hope to get i an “A” in this class. In order to achieve this grade I need to practice additional writing that is not required for class. I need to work on my writing by adding more rigorous thoughts and supplementary ideas that support my thoughts. I want to know what I can do to improve the quality and responses in my daybook. I would like to see a properHerhold 4 reflection from a previous student's daybook so I know what my reflections should resemble. I am curious as to what we will be writing later this semester and next semester, I am curious if I can start preparing now in order to better match the requirements for future assignments. The following are daybook entries I have chosen to reflect my best attempts of critical thinking and learning. x 1. This Isn’t What We Did in High School. (Page 226 Question 5) ‘When I am sitting by myself writing, I feel the influence to write something motivational. I choose to write something motivational because I believe that it helps me reach a deeper understanding with myself. I feel like I am working toward reaching my inner desire for what I am here to do. I feel as if I can begin to map out my future and what I want to do with my life, I am influenced to look at myself and try to write something that reflects how I feel or what I am going through. I agree with the social constructionists when they say we don’t write alone. People constantly share their thoughts and feelings through their writing. There are so many influential people who have written books about their life, Individuals such as presidents have highlighted special events their life and emphasized their ability to overlook the nation. They write these books to enlighten others and to explain why they made the choices they did while they were in office. There are millions of blogs, poems, biographies and stories that are meant to influence others to become something more than they already are. I believe that a lot of people experience similar feelings such as grief, happiness and enlightenment so they write about their experiences. In years past, I remember talking to a good friend of mine who shares a similar writing style as I do. We both tend to focus on persuading other to think aHerhold 5 certain way because in our mind it is the right way to think. By sharing thoughts with each other, we can put in different ideas that allow the audience to grasp a deeper understanding. Reflection: I chose this daybook entry because I think it supports how I write. I think my writing is unique in a way because no one else shares thoughts that are similar to mine. ‘The great thing about writing is that we can all express our opinions based on how we see them and together we can learn more. Choosing this daybook entry has allowed me to explain how others feel anger, sadness and pleasure in their writing. I believe our wiring has a lot to say about ourselves because we are free to say what ever we want and how ever we like to say it. I have learned that we can write influential passages or persuasive passages that cause a person to think in a way they have never thought of before. x 2. Tips for College Writing Success (Page 153 Question 3) My ability to listen to music while I write depends on the rigor of my assignment. Generally I need absolute silence to read and write, When I have absolute silence I can think clearly and I can put down what I think is the most important and meaningful. My most rigorous writing comes from when I am not listening to music because I am fully focused on making the writing as in-depth and powerful as I can. If the assignment is more relaxed and it does not require a lot of thought, I tend to listen to some rock music that is upbeat at times and slow at other times. The up beat and uplifting music gives me motivation to write and to go deeper with my writing. If did listen to music while I was writing something, I would compose a 2 or 3 hours piano playlist becaus: relaxing and moving.TT T==Z|ZZ Herhold 6 Reflection: I chose this daybook entry because I think music says a lot about us. Music sets the tone in a lot of movies and it makes things seem appropriate for the moment. I feel as if music “speaks” to us because it interacts with our thoughts and feelings. I believe that based on the type of music playing, our thoughts and feelings are impacted. This in turn causes us to write in a certain style or say things that we would not have said if we were not listening to music at that time. I choose not to listen to music while I write papers because I can’t concentrate as well. I also believe that by not listening to music my writing is a pure example of my personality, who I am and what I believe. x 3. Slam Poetry (Shrinking Woman) 1 believe that the point of the slam was to show others how society has influenced women to grow more quite and inward while men grow outward. Over time women work so hard to provide of others that they are often left skinny and “empty”. They feel empty and ashamed to eat because society has influenced the way they should look. The men grow fat because they are confident and have authority. Women grow inward because they are gentle, careful and center on providing for others. Women sometimes feel like they give everything to others and they are left with nothing. In this slam, the dad gets everything while the mom doesn’t get anything. The poem depicts how society thinks women and men should be. According to the poem, women should be more sheltered and men should bear be more expressive. Reflection: J chose this slam poem because it has a lot of hidden meaning and it can be interpreted in many ways. I think that the poem bring up some of the hidden issues that women face in society. Women seem to support everyone while they get much less in 7 return, Men on the other hand tend not to do as many chores and they get what they wantHerhold 7 because they are more authoritative. I think that in society today, men pressure women more because they show dominance and authority while women show impotence and inferiority. I do not agree with these stereotypes and I think men should share more of the roles women commonly fulfill. I believe that women should enjoy themselves just as much as men do. ¥ 4, Hearing Voices: Yours, Mine, Ours (Page 91 Question 4) Some difficult, yet predictable college writing tasks may include writing a paper to a different audience. For example, the audiences we typically write to are our teachers or peers. I have never written to a more powerful individual who will grade me on my professionalism and “voice”. I believe this would be difficult to perform because I have been writing in the same “voice” all my life and I am not familiar with writing any other way. We may also have to learn different strategies for approaching writing tasks so that ‘we can communicate how much we know and understand about a subject for a particular audience. I believe that I am most experienced writing research essays for my professors because I have been practicing and perfecting my writing for many years. On the other hand, a different writing style is used in labs. Generally in labs there are hypothesis, procedures, experiments and conclusions that need to be accurately answered. In labs we generally support our findings with evidence. The evidence may support our hypothesis or it may disprove it. We must change our writing style depending on which audience we are addressing. We have to explore and use new “voices” to develop a better understanding of the different writing styles. Some research papers may require us to take authority and prove why our point or research is correct. Other times we have to take charge of our audience and convince them that we are right.Herhold 8 Reflection: I chose this daybook entry because I thought it covers a major aspect of our writi ig. As writers we need to develop our “voice” so that we can address different audiences in different classes. I feel as if everyone has a unique “voice” or writing style and this is important because it adds a sense of personality to your writing. If everyone ‘wrote in the exact same manner, writing would be very redundant and boring. I also think itis very important to lear how to appeal to different audiences, A lab write up explaining your results is very different from an essay based on your beliefs. I believe that the best why to develop a “voice” in your writing is through practice.