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Elva Conde

Professor Marianita Escamilla

ENGL-1301-92L

20 October 2020

Statement of Goals and Choices

My submission contains a theory of writing paper that examines the possible benefits that

journaling could have on a person’s literacy. As someone who has struggled with writing but

enjoys journaling for pleasure, I wanted to see if there are any true benefits other than stress

relief. I think almost everyone has had some sort of diary/ journal at some point in their life, but

why do we stop? Why is it something that we out grow at some point? Is it possible that those

who continued to journal developed a more advanced literacy? If so, would people consider

bringing journaling back into their daily routines?

When creating my first draft one could sense how unsure I was just by reading my

submission. I was not sure if I truly understood the idea of inquiries and if my inquiry had any

purpose to me. Any question I came up with I always felt as though It was not good enough or

interesting to others. I had to get rid of the mentality that there is such a thing as “bad questions.”

Every question is a good question, without questions we can’t expand our knowledge. The

hardest part of the process was being able to find sources that supported my inquiry. Although It

made sense to choose sources that supported I was interested to see in those that challenged my

argument. I think it is helpful at times to get both sides to help you determine a truthful answer.

If you are just reading what you want, then it is easy to say you are right. It was hard to find

sources that involved some sort of experimental data in regards to my inquiry. My first draft I

only managed to gather three sources and were straight forward. Which I thought at the time was
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good, but in my second draft I realized I was bored with my own work. My answers were too

predictable with my sources, I wanted sources that could not only expand the way I viewed

journaling but to others.

The development of my second draft felt natural. I had a stronger sense of what direction

I wanted to go in, purpose, audience, etc. In my second draft I gathered four completely different

sources. One that showed actual data of a journaling experiment done on high school students

comparing scores. Second being a TEDx video where the speaker shows us his “bullet journal

tool” he developed on managing his thoughts and focusing on the important things. Third being a

musician’s blog where he emphasizes the importance of journaling for musicians to keep track of

their progress, ideas, etc. Last one being the input of a psychology website composed of only

psychologists of all sorts, implying the benefits of journaling. I wanted to get sources I felt

people could relate to, such as the musicians blog post…who doesn’t listen to music? Music is

one of the most common languages we share. How journaling doesn’t just help with

grammar/school but yet other aspects of our literacy. I found joy when encountering these

sources as I felt I managed to connect and explain each one to my inquiry. Which is not the

simplest thing to do. I felt as though I needed to make personal connections to each source to

somehow grasp my audience’s attention and hopefully could relate.

The audience I wanted to target was mostly students but also anyone in general. Which is

why choosing sources that could apply to not only school literacy but other forms were important

to me. In order to accomplish my objective, I had to dig into my past and find reasoning behind

my lack of interest in writing. During this entire process I learned how being able to support your

arguments can make or break your work. You can have the most interesting inquiry but if you

can’t explain/support you automatically lose the interest of your audience. I also had never done
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as much research as I did for this submission but It did develop a different view on inquires. I

enjoyed reading the questions of my peers and their arguments. I think the choosing of one’s

sources is just as important as engaging with them. I realized in my first draft I had trouble

engaging with my sources since they lacked information and I had little to work with. Unlike my

second draft where I looked in different areas of literacy and found better sources to support. The

important take away from this whole process is that writing does take time to perfect. That things

won’t be perfect on the first try but a matter of trial and error. As someone who prefers to not ask

for help, I don’t think I could have continued to better my work without my peers’ feedback.