Eliza Roesler

Professor Donegan

ENGL 1A

28 October 2019

The Final Step of Wiicovery: Wiiflection

If I am being honest, I have spent the last few drafts chuckling at my title, and using that

laughter to fuel the addition of more humor into the rest of my essay. I feel that the lighthearted

tone I used, weaved together with playful anecdotes, balanced out the serious aspects of the

essay concerning my grandfather and was the most successful part of my essay. The open-ended

prompt allowed for creativity through humor and opened the floodgates of my eccentric

personality that I was able to broadcast in my writing.

The weirdest part of my writing process was the zone I locked myself in; words shot out

from my fingers before I even knew them and all of the sudden I was a page deep. Writing was

like sleepwalking. It took me about two hours of uninterrupted writing to get to almost 7 pages.

My brain was on fire. The ease of the first draft, however, proved to be a difficulty later on. I am

a very stubborn writer, and because of my magical, mind-reading fingers, I tend to get attached

to what I first write down. My inflexibility with change to my work makes it harder to accept

feedback. When the first peer review class rolled around, I went into it reluctant that I would

gain anything worthwhile. The person that edited my first draft gave me a few comments I didn’t

agree with, and it took me longer to revise my first draft than it did to write it. Luckily, the due

date of the next draft was generous and I was able to alter it enough so that I felt like I had come

out from peer review with a significantly better draft. I tried to over-describe everything so that I
could cut it out later, even if I thought it was unnecessary, because I would have information to

cut out before the final draft. A new thinking process emerged for me in my revision process. In

my first draft, I write what comes to mind, but in my revisions, I would keep in mind whether or

not I was starting with an expletive, and if I was using unnecessary words like “just” or “really.”

However, I struggled with digging deeper because I felt like I had gone as deep as possible

already, but I never asked for more clarification from my peers. Instead, I ignored the comments

I disagreed with. The second round of peer review I was nervous about, because I was paired

with a boy in the class that I didn’t know well and I was embarrassed that he would read my

essay about my Wii and think I was five years old. It didn’t go as bad as I thought, and I actually

got valuable feedback, mostly in regards to punctuation and minor tweaks. One thing that I think

could improve this process is to have a questionnaire that assesses each student’s strengths so

that they can be matched with someone with those weaknesses. For example, everytime I thought

I saw a place where flow needed to be improved, I was reluctant to insert a semicolon or comma,

because I am not particularly well versed in when to use them. I fear that I was not as helpful as I

could have been in reviewing my partner’s essay.

Upon meeting with my professor, I found it even harder to accept changes, because I had

already done one round of review, but being able to meet one-on-one with the person who would

actually be grading my paper made it easier for me to be open-minded, and this was the most

helpful part of the revision process. Her suggestions that I should not use the second person

format and the correction of expletives added to the clarity of my essay. Even though these two

points weren’t major changes, they were numerous small parts to rewrite that actually made up a

big portion of my essay and while fixing them I noticed more that needed to be revised. It was
also really rewarding to have a conversation about what she thought about my essay, and the

positive feedback helped me feel better about what I had written; it was reassuring I was not

completely off base with the assignment. In my final draft, Missy identified that my writing was

not concise and included expletives and nominalizations still. She also pointed out that my

punctuation, grammar, and revision needed work. These aspects were all things that I noticed as

well, and due to my stubbornness -- which I am still trying to work on -- I did not implement. In

the future I will try to take others’ input into account more, because these were all errors that

were pointed out to me in previous revisions and I purposely left a few in because I felt that they

impeded the message I wanted to get across in my essay. Why did I do this? I can’t get out of my

own way sometimes. A goal I would like to set is when I am given feedback, I want to either

accept the changes, or follow up with the person that gave me the suggestion. I will stop ignoring

certain comments! My class can help me by establishing a safe space so that I don’t feel

embarrassed, which so far has been hard to accept. By feeling safe in the classroom, I can be

more open to feedback. I do not see myself going to the HUB for this help, but would seek

advice from fellow classmates because they are going through the same thing I am and I believe

they are a shortcut to relevant feedback. I also think that if I am struggling, I would make an

appointment with my professor, because meeting with Missy was the most helpful part of the

revision process.

In addition to being a better listener in the revision process, I want to work on parallelism

in my writing. I have always applauded myself for stylistic writing that was unique and

interesting, but was in for a rude awakening when it came across as choppy. Again, I am not

helping myself with a headstrong attitude. I also want to write more with less words. A clear
example is that this essay is four pages. I have so much to say, but I have a hard time realizing

when I am not being concise. I wish I would have realized this earlier so that I could have asked

for feedback before my final draft, but I was blinded by the six page requirement, so I saw my

length as a strength. This is the goal I want to set for the second half of the quarter. To achieve

this, I will set up meetings with Missy to review the attempts I make, and I will also use the

book, ​The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing​, to draw advice from. The author has valuable tips

on how to improve clarity while still maintaining a unique style and the proper ways to use

punctuation. I need all the help I can get with using punctuation. I will start by putting my

knowledge from the book into our next essay, and will gauge how I improve according to my

instructor’s feedback. From there, I can decide if I need more help from my professor and need

to make an appointment. I want to do this so that I can improve my writing technique, and so I

don’t feel like I have to cut my style out because I can’t employ it correctly.