Salvador 1

Elvira Salvador

Dr. Warwick

ACE Writing 2

20 March 2024

My ACE Writing 2 Story

Writing has always been one of my favorite subjects. Coming to college, I have been able

to take classes that are of my interest and although I have to take Writing 2 as a requirement, I

am so glad that I chose this class with Dr. Warwick since I was able to learn how to tell my own

story and my own experiences. Shifting that narrative has been a process for me since I have

never really written about my own experiences and I also didn’t always have a chance to

incorporate them somewhere. Being in this class meant doing academic research, writing about

subjects that interest me, and reflecting. With projects we have done in this course, such as

Project 1 and 2, I noticed that because they are actually interesting to me, it no longer felt like

just another piece of assignment for a class. I love the diversity that comes with writing and I feel

like I can express myself easier on paper instead of talking. I have really enjoyed writing in this

class and being in an environment where the content is more important than things such as

grammar or punctuation which have made this class that much more enjoyable.

In this class, at least once a week, we would do a mindfulness activity. These mindfulness

activities would consist of things such as going outside and observing what we notice and feel

not only in our surroundings but within ourselves too. At the end of these mindfulness activities,

we would then go on to write about our experiences. One of the things that I enjoyed in this class

was reflecting on my weeks. Weekly reflections are a part of this class in which we write a

reflection describing, evaluating, analyzing, concluding and writing about an action plan on
 Salvador 2

writing that week (Gibbs’). The purpose of the Gibbs reflective cycle is to allow us to reflect on

experiences which can shape who we are but while also learning from them (Gibbs’). In my first

encounter with mindfulness, I wrote in my weekly reflection, “In class we chose a painting and

then did a mindfulness activity which involved stepping outside to think about the picture instead

of just sitting down and writing about it.” Although I was not familiar with mindfulness that

much, I enjoyed having time dedicated in class that would allow us to explore and do

mindfulness. Looking back I can see how much the mindfulness really helped me in grounding

myself and becoming more collected. I really enjoyed how even if I was feeling stressed, I still

was able to come to a class where I would have at least a few minutes to destress. This was

something that I felt I really needed going through this quarter.

In Freewriting by Peter Elbow, freewriting is described as writing continuously for a few

minutes without thinking of what we already wrote and without stopping (Elbow 1). Each class

we did exactly that for 5 minutes with topics provided by Dr. Warwick or if we wanted to go

completely off topic, we were also allowed to do that. There was always that creative freedom

that we had in class which was my favorite thing. By freewriting, I am able to calm down since I

am more focused on what I am writing and not so much on my other worries. Even though there

was only one mindfulness activity each week, freewriting felt like another one to me. Being in

this class, I have learned that I don’t have to be a good writer to start writing something. I have

learned to just write down what I think and then later go on to edit the mistakes that I see (Elbow

1). This skill was something that I really needed to work on. I tend to take a long time writing

since I am so focused on what “sounds right” which disrupts the writing process for me (Elbow

1).
 Salvador 3

One of the readings that I really enjoyed in this class was the Dispositions Towards

Learning by Jennifer Wells. The text talked about how the learners themselves play a huge role

in affecting the way that they learn (Wells 18). The learning disposition that really stuck to me

the whole quarter was the “Expectancy Value Theory” (Wells 20). The theory says that if one

values what they are doing, they will be more motivated to do it (Wells 20). This ties into Project

1, in which we had to find articles about a topic that we chose, look for the conversation that was

happening among scholars and then present our findings in a genre of our choice. As I was

working on this project, I remember reading through my chosen articles about English Language

Learners and thinking about how interesting everything that I was reading was. I became very

interested in researching more and reading that it didn’t really feel like I was doing an

assignment. I realized the purpose of why it is so important to do what I like. I then started to

reflect on myself and realized that when I do something that I am not interested in, I tend to put

less effort into it compared to when I do something that is more interesting to me.

I would notice when we would do an assignment, that it all either tied back to what we

were doing or going to do later on in the course. Using the sources that I had gathered in Project

1 and notes that I had taken, I was supposed to look for where I can incorporate my findings onto

Wikipedia. Going into Project 2, I was not really sure at the beginning where to start. One

learning disposition is self-efficacy which is when we believe that we can do something that can

influence our lives (Wells 21). In some parts, when I was doing Project 2, I didn’t quite have so

much self-efficacy in the beginning. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to finish the

assignment since I didn’t quite understand how I was supposed to add a contribution to

Wikipedia. However, the more we worked on the project, the more I began understanding why it

was so important to add in information that was missing in order to reach others. We need to
 Salvador 4

make some topics more well known, especially when there are a lot of issues that we are not

made aware of due to the lack of research. Having peer review set up during this project was

helpful since I was glad to have at least two other people read what I had written. The peers

assigned let me know what parts in my draft for my contribution towards Wikipedia sounded

good which I consider helpful. Even having peer review set up for Project 1 resulted in being

very helpful since I was able to make some changes that made my final presentation of my

findings even better.

Through Project 1 and 2, I not only got to learn about myself but also on the academic

research part of things. These are skills that will beyond help me when doing research later on.

Especially as a first year student, I now feel as though I am better prepared to do actual research

in an educational setting. Something that I did not know how to do before. I felt that just having

an environment where I could be creative and express myself really helped me in bringing

myself to enjoy writing even more. I will say that going out of this class, the skills that I have

learned such as research and how to regulate my emotions when I am feeling stressed will

definitely help me in the future. I can’t say how much this class has helped me in destressing and

I am very glad to have had the opportunity to take this class.

 Salvador 5

Works Cited

Elbow, Peter. “Freewriting.” Writing Without Teachers. Oxford UP, USA, 1973, pp. 1 - 7

EPM. “Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle Explained.” YouTube, 3 May 2019,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gbczr0lRf4.

Wells, Jennifer. “Dispositions Towards Learning.” Writing Spaces 5 pp. 17 - 27