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Stefan Burlet

Professor Beadle

English 115

07 December 2017

Writing Mindset

As we have discussed throughout this academic semester, there are two main types of

mindsets that people can believe. The first is a fixed mindset, where humans are born with fixed

intelligence, talent, and ability. The other is a growth mindset, where humans start with a certain

level of intelligence but are able to learn and build upon, with hard work and dedication, that

intelligence and become smarter and more skilled individuals. I believe in the second mindset,

and I know that throughout this term in English 115, I have grown in my writing abilities and

communication skills. From Project Space to Project Media, I have learned new techniques in

planning my writing to executing onto paper, and I know that from my hard work and dedication

to a subject that is not my strongest, I have become stronger in my abilities as a writer and I feel

prepared for all my future writing projects. I have also learned about resources to take advantage

of to my further growth in English, and I am happy to see those results already taking form.

Starting with Project Space, I was introduced to the ideas of spaces where a writer must

analyze their audience, and write with the proper style necessary to punctuate a message to their

readers. With my writing on the space aboard airplanes, I feel that I have accurately composed an

essay with an understanding of my audience. I also know that because this was my first

university paper, I took the planning of the essay and the idea phase very seriously.

Brainstorming upon many different topics, it took me some time to determine that I wanted to

choose the space of an airplane. Once I chose this space, I immediately started researching the
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topic, and came up with my hook, One of the most memorable episodes from the 1960s The

Twilight Zone television show was Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, where a thirty-seven-year-old

Mr. Robert Wilson is convinced he is seeing a gremlin on the wing of the plane he is aboard, but

none of his fellow passengers or crew believes him. Why was it so memorable? I think that this

introduction paragraph is very interesting because it connects to most of the readers in my space.

I believe that this Twilight episode is very memorable, and if anyone remembers watching the

show, they would remember this episode. I also wanted to confirm my analysis, which revealed

that this Twilight Zone episode was one of the top ten best episodes from CBSnews.com. With

this in mind, I continued to write about the fear that passengers have, and had to think what

caused this fear. I knew that I could research and ask questions from my father, who happens to

be a Captain who flies Boeing 757-767s, and he gave me more writing tips in the space of an

airplane. Overall, I am very proud of how this first writing project went. After receiving the

corrections on the essay, I understood how I could have expanded upon more ideas in my essay

and made more specific and detailed writing in my paragraphs.

Project Text was a good learning experience in that I was able to analyze a foreign film

instead of traditional literature. At first, this created a problem because I needed to take detailed

notes about the film, and going back and referencing scenes from the film would not be as easy

as it would have been if I was analyzing a text document. With this understanding, along with

my abilities in film studies that I have acquired from many film classes I have taken before this

class, I feel I was able to tackle this problem and write an interesting and detailed analysis

between the 1954 and 2016 versions of Godzilla. As with Project Space, I researched Godzilla on

many different websites and came to my conclusions that I knew I could expand upon. From my

critiqued work from Project Space, it was important to me to make sure I could have topics that I
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could explore in depth. I feel as though I was able to take what we learned from the PowerPoint

Emphatics, Qualifiers, and Fallacies and include more meta-commentary into my essay. For

example, I used In other words and This relates back too to connect and build upon my

argument and provide more details. It was also a learning experience to include a refutation in

my essay, and I believe I did well with my counter-argument Some may argue, however, that

the basic plot of the story still remains the same from Godzilla to Shin Godzilla. While this may

be apparent on the surface, taking a deeper look at the film reveals one major detail that is an

undeniable change in Shin Godzilla As I finished this essay, there was a noticeable

improvement in my writing and I believe it showed.

From the final Project Media, I again see how my writing improved, as noted by the

culmination of all the previous skills I learned this year such as meta-commentary, and counter-

argument, along with researching and planning my essay out. I am also improved in my overall

style, using more complex vocabulary and alliteration, such as But even in American legal

legislation. Although the presentation of my essay could have gone better, Im quite nervous

of public speaking I know that future Communications classes at CSUN will teach me the

skills I need to succeed in this difficult and challenging task.

I know that throughout my future writings at CSUN, along with the help and support

from the many faculties that are provided by the university, such as the Learning Resource

Center and learning workshops, I will most certainly continue my growth as a student and as a

communicator. I feel surprised and empowered when I look back at my old essays and see where

I have come from, and I know that if I continue to work hard and keep writing, that my abilities

will continue to grow.