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Jilver Mazariegos
Dr. Linda Haas
Writing 37
7 December 2014

Reflection Essay

The first time walking into writing 37 I had low expectation on learning anything rather new
instead I came with a mindset that I would just practice plain old writing. I honestly had fear taking this
class since I was never a brilliant writer and had many obstacles to bypass if I was ever going to get
better at writing. But the thought of having this class, along with my math heavy courses, seemed a
tremendous challenge to overcome but now after these 10 weeks of work, I can now say that I did learn
much more than my initial expectations by far. Dr. Haas made this class interesting and unique through
various assignments both individual work and group collaboration. By studying Sherlock I became far
more intrigued in analyzing and working on conventions of the detective genre. These assignments
helped me mature as an academic writer and continue to improve my communication skills.
When studying the important context of the detective genre , I had a curiosity about knowing
this Victorian era background. The most important thing I obtained from studying the context is just how
important it is to truly understand why the detective genre flourished among specifically middle class
men. The way the class learned about the context was through the wikis and presentations. The wikis
helped pave my analytical mind through gathering important information and assorting what is needed
and not needed. This not only helped me gather information about the wikis but also helped me in
presenting it to the class. Presenting has always frightening me despite having done so in several
occasions I still had the chills and was nervous when on stage in front of a group. I didn't want to

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present but I was determined to do so and this showed flexibility because I knew in order to get rid of
these fears I had to adapt to the situation. I did so by practicing among my family and friends, this effort
did pay off and I was able to present. I learned how to speak up and be confident and to be prepared.
for the situation. Through this first presentation I was able to be more creative for the second
presentation. This presentation was creative not because of the PowerPoint but because I decided to
add a skit of a passage from The Final Problem. I reenacted the part of Watson realizing the death of
Holmes and Moriarty as he stood shocked and confused feeling the loss of a great friend. This small skit
helped me discover the ability to be creative and show information rather than just talk about it.
Through these wikis and presentations, it helped me in analyzing the passages of the literary
scholars such as Panek, Dove , and Clausson. These excerpts that the scholar made seemed very
overwhelming, not only in sheer reading material but also in understanding the complex idea that these
authors are conveying. But because I had an understanding of the context, this helped me have a small
outlook of what the authors where going to say regarding to the detective genre. These texts proved to
be challenging but however because the texts were challenging I was able to develop critical reading
skills and slowly was able to understand and synthesize information about the detective genre and its
popularity. Since the class has read all these articles, there was one thing left to do, to show our
analytical reading skills through an academic essay. The first academic essay was a Literature Review
which proved to be challenging. The main topic regarded to use the literary scholars to convey an
argument of why the detective genre became popular with Doyle. The second essay involved a
rhetorical analysis about the modern conventions and its adaptation towards its modern audience using
evidence from the cinematic elements like tilt, matchmaking, and keystone light as well as using a
literary scholar. When I started writing I didn't know how to begin and how to set up, in essence I was
lost. But after learning about the conventions of the academic essay , it became clear. These
conventions I learned was to first start with a controlling idea and a thesis that conveys the main

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argument of the whole essay. Then I made sub points which are examples from the scholarly texts and
Doyle's novels to back up the main argument. Then when I constructed this essay it became clear where
I had to include the sources and use the most effective one. And most importantly synthesize the
information rather than summary simply because that's the goal of these essays. These essays, although
were difficult, taught me the conventions of the academic writing to use and write effective arguments
for a scholarly audience.
A major passage from my literature review where I had to go back and fix was honestly the
whole introduction of the essay. I chose this passage because a lot of the peer reviewers said the
introductions main controlling idea was too vague and didn't correctly fit within the academic essay. I
needed to revise the introduction so I rewrote the controlling idea and also provided a small
introduction to the literary authors that were used to convey their arguments. The same goes for my
rhetorical essay where I chose to rewrite the introduction. I chose this passage because like my
literature review it was lacking in having a strong controlling idea. I made sure the controlling idea was
clear and concise as well as use more scholarly syntax that was lacking from my first draft. The most
important aspect of having done these essays was the peer review. This is because of what we learned
from an article discussing why giving review is better than receiving it. This is true as looking at other
classmates errors and faults in their essays helped me look for my faults in my essays; for example while
peer reviewing a classmates introduction idea I was able to find odd wordings or repetitive words which
made me look back and fix my essay by removing repetitive words or phrases . Through peer review and
revising my essays, I learned how to be persistent, to keep working and revising despite the
cumbersome work load. I also learned how to effectively write a proper controlling idea while noticing
small mistakes that I haven't noticed before after further revising my essay.

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Arguably the most fun tasks in the class were the group wikis, presentations and RIP seminars.
Working on the Victorian wiki, my part involved explain the class integrations between working, middle,
and upper class. During my second wiki, I was involved in explaining the rhetorical use of the cinematic
elements which were whip pan, match on action, and pan as well as find almost all nine examples of
these elements used through the modern works of Holmes. For the Victorian presentation, I talked
about the major differences between the classes; I made an interactive quiz at the end in which I was
the first to do so in the class. The second presentation was finding an excerpt from the Final Problem
and analyze the passage using the literary scholars arguments. I found a passage where Holmes is
showing his genius mind when he explains the plan to catch Moriarty. I also made a skit in which I
played Watson reacting to Holmes death at the end of the short story. Now for the RIP I contributed by
explaining religion and science during the Victorian era to another class room through a PowerPoint.
Having all these collaborations in mind, I indeed learned a lot, I learned how to be open minded and
engage into these presentations. The reason why I learned to be open minded was because each group
member was different, we all had different ideas or ways of thinking and it was a responsibility to be
open to their ideas to function as a group. And by doing so I was able to engage into the texts by mostly
proving details and finding new information that I had not known about as well as invent new ideas like
a skit that I did. Everything that I did in this group will help develop communication skills and
responsibility in the future that way even if a few of my team mates are missing during a presentation,
the presentation has to go on.
The last major assignment to reflect upon is connect. The hardest assignments was developing a thesis
or claim specifically distinguishing defensible claims that are not defensible and claims that are focused
and not focused. These proved to be challenging as it was very difficult for me to decide what made an
argument invalid. At the end I was able to catch the wrong use of claims or rather what seemed like a
claim but was an opinion. What I need more practice on is on dangling and misplaced modifies as I

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guessed a lot on the questions and need more practice to fully understand the material. At the end of
the day, I learned a lot of simple grammar and punctuation skills that I wouldn't have know if I didn't do
these connect assignment and is exactly why these assignments taught me responsibility. During half
way through the course I was missing many connect assignment in which I had trouble doing but after
meeting with Dr. Haas I was able to comprehend what I did wrong and go back and fix the issues and
accept the consequences for it.
Finally, and most importantly having metacognition on the most important learning experience
that I obtained through the class. The most important lessons I learned is to be open minded about the
work and people that one works with. And also to be curious about what we learn and the work that
accompanies it, as it will make you a better student. And most importantly the thing to take with me for
the future is to enjoy writing as it's a useful tool not only in communicating to scholarly audience but
learning new ideas and concepts and reflecting on them to truly understand it. As writing 37 ends, my
first outlook on the class also ends and now I know that this class was worth my time and patience as I
learned a lot of new ideas and concepts that will make me a better writer for the rest of my days in
college.