March 30, 2022

Topic: 'Toxic' podcast explores Britney Spears's conservatorship

a) why do you think we are talking and reading about #FreeBritney in a college writing class?

Freeing Britney from her father is a big thing not just in the US, but also around the

world. I heard about this even when I was all the way back in China. As the ABC article stated,

the entire “FreeBritney” campaign started because Tess Barker and Barbara Gray questioned

Britney’s suspicious conservatorship. Learning about such events in college writing courses

firstly provides students the opportunity to catch up on the recent news happing around us. Most

importantly, “FreeBritney” implies how essential it is for college students to possess the habit

and courage to question things in life.

b) list as many questions as you can that we might ask about the content of this article / this

situation that might be related to writing.

1. How the “third-person point of view” helps to express the theme of the article?

2. What is special about this article’s diction?

3. What is the tone of this article?

4. Did the quotations in the article help with the writer’s illustration?

March 30, 2022

The very first writing class I took taught me the purpose of writing is to persuade and to

express. Rhetoric is the art of persuading people, and I see self-expression as the concrete

foundation of persuasion. “All writing is Autobiography” states how all writings cast authors’
own opinions, and conveying these messages to the readers is also persuading readers into

believing certain ideas.

When I am watching movies or reading books, time flies. Fiction is my way of taking a

break from real life, giving me a chance to set everything aside and relax for a few hours. Fiction

takes us to places and worlds we cannot reach normally. Watching movies and reading books is

like living through someone else’s life, experiencing different adventures. I could research topics

related to fiction, thus kindling my passion for the research project.

Curio Cabinet:

My Curio Cabinet should be filled with movies(DVD). Movies really inspire me, and it

provides me with a sense of satisfaction when I get to collect and keep them.

April 4, 2022

One of the biggest difficulties I faced while finding articles was finding the article I truly

interested in. Because when I was using keywords to find articles, the articles that came out were

not truly related to my keyword. So I had to scroll through many pages until I saw the right one.
But Once I found the article I truly had an interest in, I believe my later translation process

would be intriguing as well.

Before this research, I did not know there were so many articles in the UCSB library.

This huge amount of articles would be extremely helpful in my future research.

April 6, 2022

1. Advertisement

2. Emergency exit plan

3. Hand wash poster

4. Floor plans

I am most interested in the hand washing poster. When there are washing sinks for the

public, there are always washing posters next to them. I noticed that washing posters usually

come with attention-grabbing cartoon pictures and quotes that tell people the benefits of washing

their hands. This kind of poster is supposed to encourage people to wash their hands carefully for

the public’s health. This genre of writing reminds people of the significance of hand washing in

case people forget. I believe its purpose is similar to a reminder.

April 11, 2022

This website studies what is considered meaningful writing by encouraging other people

to donate their most meaningful work.

 The big poster in the building told people the result of the project including its complex

process. This website shows an in-progress work and it only introduces the background

information.

My article is a study on human-dog relationships during the lockdown period. My article

includes detailed progress and data. This website has limited information, and it is a presentation.

The website introduces meaningful writing, and the PowerPoint version could be

introducing the requirements of a meaningful writing assignment with a few examples.

If the information is being performed in written form, it certainly has more space to

contain more information. But it could lose the audience's attention easily.

April 18, 2022

1. I often write a reflection after watching a film when I was little, which was a movie

reflection. These reflections root me in recalling the entire movie and thinking about the

good things and the bad things in the movie. I started to question the movie and think

about what the director could do to improve the movie. That is exactly like reflection,

thinking about the writing from an audience perspective for further improvements.

2. I have never thought about the use of Instagram could help the audience so much. I am

not an Instagram user. Thus many terms and functions in the post were strange to me. It

took me a while to understand what was the purpose of the writer.

 3. I think it shows people the importance of reflection. A reflection is a great tool that

people sometimes neglect. We are actually always reflecting on things on our minds. But

actually writing a reflection could help people realize more problems from their writings.

4. We talked about the writing process in the course, and I think reflection is like the last

part of the writing process. We talked about how important it is to locate our writing

genre, the target audience, and to compose an outline before writing, and the last part is

to reflect on our writing. seeing our issues could help greatly with our future writing,

improving the audience's experience with their reading. Once we have the habit of

reflecting on our writing, there is no doubt that our future writings will always be pushed

by ourselves to a higher level.

April 27, 2022

1. Academic writing was the first kind of writing I learned when I was in high school, and it

is also the kind of writing that I am most familiar with. But the rules for standard writing

are limiting students from effective self-expression. I agree with the idea that trying

various kinds of writing, to explore different kinds of writing, is how we could improve

our writing and express our thoughts genuinely.

2. I am very familiar with how to quickly compose an academic essay and paraphrasing

sentences in many different ways. I gained most of my skills through practicing for the

TOEFL exam .

3. Translation is a whole new type of writing I have never tried before. I believe that is the

exploration.
May 4, 2022

I focused on the topic of “multilingual and transnational students’ needs and interests”. As a

student who has English as my second language, it was very fun to see what kind of study people

did for second language students in order to learn English successfully. Though I had a hard time

finding the kind of article I am really interested in. I wanted to know what English teachers feel

about the impact of TOEFl on students who are English learners. Do they like it? Do they hate

it? I think TOEFL is something that could effectively measure the English ability of students and

the exam preparation really helps the student to improve their English ability, though during the

process. Some habits of writing or speaking are really built into students, and their future

performances could be strongly affected.

May 11, 2022

I often have conversations with others when I need information exchange or generally I

just want to greet others. I have conversations with people in all kinds of situations, like in

school, in the office, in stores, at home, and so on. One thing that is very interesting, I talk

differently depending on the people I am talking to or the situation we are in. For instance, I talk

casually with my friends, but I would talk in a more serious and respectful way with my teachers.

May 23, 2022

Readings

Review the readings we did in Perusall and recall the three videos we watched (rhetorical

situation, writing process, remediation) and our Starting Lines readings. Which of the readings

did you enjoy? Which did you find valuable for your growth and why? Which should we keep?

Which should we cut? Explain.

I think my favorite readings are “All Writing is Autobiography” and “Writing in Genres.

These two readings on Perusall are the ones we read when we first started the course. I think they

were the significant readings that opened my mind and prepared me for exploring the field of

writing in the future. I had never heard of ideas like Genre or Media. I did not understand why

writing is genre specific. These articles explained to me the meanings of these concepts. I think

these articles built me a firm fundamental understanding of higher level writing. In the book,

Starting Line, my absolute favorite article is “Why The Five-Paragraph Template Does Not

Prepare You For University Writing”. As a second language learner, I could not relate to this

article more. Knowing the fact that all the rules for “formal essay” are breakable when we are

composing different genres of writing, was like a huge discovery. I never knew. This is both

good news and bad news. Good part about this news is that I see how many possibilities are

waiting for me to explore. Bad part about this news is that I am already used to this exam-

oriented writing system, and it is so hard to get rid of the old habits. This article made me feel

like I was not alone struggling with this issue. I do not think any article should be cut. These

articles are actually parts that eventually built up my skills and understanding of writing

generally. Therefore, I think all the writings are meaningful and significant.

Writing
What did the translation and scholarly conversation projects help you learn about writing? What

are your ideas for new assignments? Explain.

I like both of the projects, which is rare. Because I do not usually enjoy writing

assignments. Translation project was fun because I could turn a long, boring, and confusing

academic article into a few fun and interesting posts. I delivered the same messages, but in a

much more interesting and reader-friendly way, not to mention that I also explore the use of

instagram. I never knew I could trace the groups of audiences I like by using hashtags. It was like

marketing strategies. I also like the scholarly conversation project. I thought putting the

information from 5 articles together into an interesting, short, reader-friendly conversation was

very challenging. These two projects taught me the skill of turning a piece of writing into another

genre of writing, to attract another group of audience. Thus I learned what is genre specific. We

could keep the same message, but we can change the genres of this writing for different kinds of

people to read. My new idea of assignment is to do a translation project, but instead of

converting a formal essay into something simpler to understand, we convert a simple information

into something academic and formal.

Favorites

What were your favorite things about the course? Was there anything that was not your favorite

but that you learned something from? Explain.

My favorite thing about the course is that this course opened my eyes to a whole new

world of writing, seeing there is much to explore under the field. I would describe the course as a

roller-coaster-like train journey. Because I did not expect much before I entered the course, I just

thought this would be a normal train trip(a normal writing class) just like the ones I used to have.
The journey in Writing 2 did turn out to be smooth overall, but I sometimes encountered

surprises like I was on a roller coaster. There were a lot of tools and help given by the professor

along the way. But I saw so many news ideas and thoughts about both writing and teaching in

the course, such as using pnp to measure homework before final profolio to help students focus

more about the course instead of the grade, and the essay is not about following the rules, it is

about delivering the message.

Useful

What were the most useful aspects / activities / assignments in the class? Why?

I think Eli review was the most important activity . Because I did not like peer review at

all before I came to this class. Peer review was not authorized and professional like teacher’s

review. Thus I did not consider peer feedback as something valuable. But surfing the Eli review,

many of my mistakes were pointed out by my peers, and I did revise my essay based on great

advice for improvement from their feedback. Reviewed by multiple peers provided me with new

points of view and I like how things turned out. Thus I think Eli review was one of the greatest

activities.

Big Questions

What do you think were this course’s essential questions? Explain.

What is considered as a good piece of writing.

From my previous class, I know that there are many conditions in order for an essay to be

qualified as good writing, such as only using third person, 5-paragraph structure, thesis

statements that address two sides, topic sentences for each body paragraphs, introduction,
conclusion, and so on. But do these factors really measure a piece of writing effectively? Isn’t

writing all about comprehensively and audience-friendly delivery messages to the proper groups

of audience? There are much more waiting for me to find out

Advice

What’s your advice for next year’s Writ 2 students?

Keep an open mind and write as much as possible during the brainstorm stage of writing.

May 25, 2022

I usually have to compose some kinds of essays like lab reports, comparative essays, and

so on when I approach research articles. I have to use in text citations or use the “according to” if

I want to quote the information from others’ articles. But WP2 is very different. I wrote down the

information from different source articles by composing them into a conversation. I think making

them into a conversation is more fun than simply using citations to mark the resources.

WP2 is a very beneficial project for me especially. Before this project, when I wanted to

use an outside source quotation, I would either use intext citation or use “according to”. But after

this project, I learned to find sources that authors could have contradicted opinions. I could put

the contradicted opinions in my essay in order to address the two sides of the argument. I could

also add more of my personal opinions based on their arguments. I think WP2 opened my mind

to more options on citing sources and how to include sources in my writing.