You 1

WRIT 2

Danny You

Mar 26, 2023

Reflection Letter for Writing Project 1 and 2 for WRIT 2 course

As a writer, I find myself not as well rounded as the other writers of my age. I often have

a lot of different thoughts in my mind. I just find it difficult to express it either on paper or in a

google doc. Everything we have done in this class has contributed to my growth as a writer. I

learned a lot of different skills as a writer and at the same time had much deeper knowledge on

what writing should actually be like. I learned a lot of different things about writing such as

genre, conversation, audience, and the proper use of words in different situations.

The readings assigned alongside our writing assignments were very helpful in

understanding the different points being taught and discussed during the quarter. These readings

gave me actual examples and dug much deeper into the different points which further helped me

to learn the materials taught. For example, in the first week of the course. We had three different

readings assigned. The readings are “Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings

for College Writing Students” (2011) by E. Shelley Reid, “What Is ‘Academic’ Writing?” (2010)

by L. Lennie Irvin, and “How to Read Like a Writer” (2011) by Mike Bunn. These readings

introduced writing to me. I still remember how reading “How to Read Like a Writer” brings me

into a whole different perspective on reading and writing. “When you Read Like a Writer (RLW)

you work to identify some of the choices the author made so that you can better understand how

such choices might arise in your own writing.” (Bun, “How to Read Like a Writer”). Ever since
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reading that article, I learned to read like a writer and practiced that way of reading in all of the

articles assigned to read later in the course. It has completely changed my way of thinking upon

reading an academic paper.

Another point that I have learned that stands out to me is the introduction of genre. It is

my first time knowing there are so many genres in writing. Before reading “Genre in the Wild:

Understanding Genre within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems” (2022) by Lisa Bickmore, I only had a

brief idea of what a genre is. “So a genre is an act of language—for our purposes here, mostly

acts of writing, in particular—that behaves in typical or characteristic ways, which we can

observe in repeated or persistent situations.” (Bickmore, 2022). This article has clearly defined

the word “genre” for me. Also I learned there are different targeted audience and discourse

communities while writing different genres. The author also needs to consider what kind of

language to use to make a rhetorical argument. “Learning about genres and how they function is

more important than mastering one particular genre; it is this knowledge that helps us to

recognize and to determine appropriate responses to different situations—that is, knowing what

particular genre is called for in a particular situation.” (Dirk, “Navigating Genres”). All of these

points will not be so thoroughly understood if not assigned these extra writings.

As a student having English as my second language, I find using proper and appropriate

words in different situations very difficult. Everytime I come up with a sentence in my writing, I

will consider again and again if I am using correct grammar and punctuations; or if my use of

words are appropriate at the moment. I also find freewriting in class kind of challenging. As I

have mentioned before, I find it difficult to write smoothly what I have in mind out on paper. I

have enough vocabulary to express my thoughts. But sometimes I just find myself kind of lost

and do not know where to start off. This situation has changed greatly throughout the quarter. As
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we practice freewriting almost every time we meet together, I start to find freewriting fun and

entertaining. I start to like the feeling of not considering too much of how to write a full essay,

just focusing on the prompt that is given and writing as much as I can. My ability to express

myself has grown by a lot throughout this process.

After this class, I am more confident and comfortable with other courses that require

some degree of writing. I plan to improve my writing by starting to write something everyday. I

think freewriting is a very good tool to improve my writing, so I will keep that going and give

myself around ten minutes everyday to write on a topic. I would also like to improve on my

writing skills such as having more “perfect” grammar, trying out different genres of writing, and

trying to use more “high level” vocabularies in my writing.

My portfolio includes my revised Writing Project 1 and 2. My Writing Project 1 is a

genre translation of an article about the psychological impact of social isolation for people during

the covid-19 times. I have added images and changed some of the wording in my Writing Project

1. Since the genre I picked for my Writing Project 1 is a news article, I made these changes to

make my Writing Project 1 to look more like a news article. My Writing Project 2 is a reflective

essay on how to teach grammar and writing to foreign students. I included the idea of some

educators during the 1970s reflecting people’s thoughts about this topic from way back then.
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Bibliography

Bickmore, Lisa. 2022. “Genre in the Wild: Understanding Genre within Rhetorical
(Eco)Systems”

Bunn, Mike. 2011. “How to Read Like a Writer”

Dirk, Kerry. 2010. “Navigating Genres”