Dear Rachel,

It’s been a fast-paced quarter yet a great journey to work with you and my peers.

Throughout the whole process, there are a lot of impressions I’d like to share with you.

First of all, writing is always not an easy task. You have said that it “doesn’t exist in a

vacuum.” Yes, it’s true. I deeply realize it in this class that requires periodical and a large

amount of writing. No one is born to write. It’s stressful when experiencing exhaustion of

ideas. However, this class provides me an unprecedented treasure to overcome the

difficulties and become a professional writer: to get help from your instructor, your peers,

resources around you, and yourself. Thank you for your suggestions which provide me

more possibilities in the portfolio stage.

Besides receiving suggestions from you, we also get comments from two peers per

project. In the workshop day of WP1, my two group members pointed out that my

original thesis statement is not related to my topic and the word flow needs to be

improved. These are all crucial issues in formal writing, so then I focus on them and try

to work them out. Particularly, I know that the control of language can’t be improved

overnight, and long-term practice is needed to enhance the logical connection between

sentences. This is my ultimate goal in this class, in order to be more professional in

academic writing. My friends helped me out, too. Taking advantage of being an

international student, I can directly draw from the primary source, the one from Chinese

social media, in which language is the same as my mother language. However, there is a

proverb that is hard to translate and there are no results when searching for translation. It

should keep the meaning yet be concise and witty, better using proverb in English as

well. I call on my American-born-Chinese friends to help, and eventually we make it out:

“back against the wall,” the idiomatic expression.

Furthermore, another useful strategy taught in class is to utilize the library catalogs

to search what you need. Before that class, I know little about how powerful our library

resources are. Our kind librarian elaborately instructed us to get familiar with the

searching system, which is not only used in Writing 2 but also in the overall learning

method of our college life even after we graduate.

As an important course material, the readings on the readers are also helpful. In

WP1, I first approach to the idea of “genre.” I thought it previously as a specific format

of a kind of writing. However, after I scrutinized the readings, I found that it wasn’t the

case. Kerry Dirk’s “Navigating Genres” has left a deep impression on my mind. “Q:

What do you get when you rewind a country song? A: You get your wife back, your job

back, your dog back… (Dirk)” Humorously and vividly, the author gives examples of

genre conventions in front of my eyes. I started to realize, these characteristics of a genre

are not formats or requirements but established by people through long social practices.

Inspired from the reading, I created my own definition of genre in WP1: Bluntly, genres

are nothing but a path shown up only when thousands of people walk through. That is,

there are no rules or standards set up at first… In fact, when more and more people

spontaneously express feelings of losing lovers, jobs, and hometowns in their songs, a

path shows up, where after the first person leaves some tracks on the ground, the second

person steps on the tracks, following but making it more clear… In short, genres are a

form of writing both established and flexible. Reading from “Making Choices in

Writing” by Jessie Szalay also inspired me creating a metaphor to explain what rhetorical

situations are to my audience. I wrote, “imagine that genre is the type of building for its
specific function, like an apartment, office building, or mall. Genre may decide how it

looks like, but it is the environment that determines what material each of the brick is

made of.” These pieces of my writing gained recognition from you and my peers, which

greatly encouraged me to keep that creation. But of course, like writing itself, inspiration

doesn’t come from vacuum as well. My tiny success can’t do without the stimulation of

the readings.

Most importantly, I have learned how to get help from myself. Freewriting is a

really indispensable process that everyone should experience before settling down the

formal version. Before this class, I have never tried it. In my preconceived opinion,

writing is giant, like a skyscraper, that you should build each of the brisk in one breath

and make them joint with each other without a single crack. However, a successful writer

doesn’t need to be like this. Although the whole writing process needs deep

considerations which is hard and time-consuming, the first level of thinking doesn’t have

to be that stressful. What you need to do is to believe yourself, since you are the one who

knows you best, and drain out your flow of thoughts. It might be far from perfect that we

expect to see in our final version, but don’t be afraid, the first step is always the hardest.

In fact, the process of writing is exactly the process of thinking. Every time when I have

little to say about the topic, I just start to type. Expanding the prompt or explaining the

keywords at first, I gradually know what opinions I’m holding on this topic. During the

stage that I feel my thoughts are barren, I freely write to overcome the potential

difficulty. This is the best strategy I have learned from this class. When there is no one

around to help you, yourself is always the first productive force.

Overall, I really enjoy this class with you guys and such great resources. Things I
gained here will benefit my future learning path since writing is our best communicating

tool and friend forever.

Sincerely,

Shiqi Zhang