Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

From UMassWiki

These are divided into two pages because of length. There is no rhyme or reason beyond the season and time. :-)

Andy and His Words

College Writing continues to challenge me in my own writing abilities. My first reflection was mainly about my past as a writer before coming to this class, along with my Unit 1 paper. I was very happy with the end result of my Unit 1 paper, and was ready to go on unit 2. However, Unit 2 proved to be a completely different assignment than unit one. While they were both related to identity, it was hard for me to transition from my writing style in Unit 1 to my writing style in Unit 2. In Unit 1 I was able to tell a story, which is my favorite thing to do as a writer, but this paper was focused completely on defending an argument. Instead of describing a person or place I was defending arguments. I have obviously written papers defending theses, but none had seemed as complex as this one.

Nice contrast between the two styles (storytelling, defending an argument). I hope you'll write more about complexity. :-)

I wasn't sure if I even bought into the idea of differentiating “claims” and “summaries” when the unit was introduced. The idea made basic sense but it seemed to me that some summary was necessary in defending any claim about an article that had been read. The first draft of my paper orchestrated my lack of understanding of the concept. I had put in a lot of summary, and while I had made a claim, I had apparenlty not done much to defend it. My second draft, however, I completely redid the entire paper trying to put in all the advice from the professor, and it seemed like a legitamate paper to me. The teacher agreed that the material was good, however, something that was also a problem in Unit 1 came up again in this draft of Unit 2. The organization of the paper wasn't it's best, and I was once again too wordy.

Organization is a challenge for everyone. Usually, the more rewriting one does, the more apparent organizational issues become, and the more skilled you (as author) become at anticipating the ways a reader may be led astray or left confused unless the idea in each sentence is clearly tied to the idea in the next sentence. Wordiness might actually be an overcorrection?

While the organization thing I'm hopeful to fix, I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to fix the wordiness of my papers. I love to talk a lot, and when I write all the words in my head come out, and it's a lot of them. I like to give essays human qualities, even if it's supposed to be an official argumentative document, and I feel like this hurts me. See, I could've just said “this hurts me” in the previous statement, but I threw in “I feel like.” This is exactly what I mean. I'm a conversational guy, even when I'm writing and all I'm going is having a conversation with myself in my head. So even when I'm trying very hard to write papers with as little words as I can, they just work themselves in there sometimes. I'm not really sure if I'm ever going to be able to fix that entirely, but I'm not too worried about it. I could still make a career writing for standup comics with a lack of organization and clarity in my writing.

You make me grin! There's nothing wrong with a conversational style, but you do need to consider whether that works for your readers. This (text) is a different medium than speech.

I suppose that's sufficient enough for a tangent about my personal career goals, back to my writing in this class. While I think I made significant improvement from my first draft to my second, it's clearly not perfect, and I'm still going to try and work on it if I have time. I believe I can fix my organizational issues, and we'll see what happens from there. I'm still unsure how much I've really grown as a writer, however. My Unit 2 paper still needs work, and the first couple drafts of unit 3 have been pretty dicey. I've always had a harder time with research-related essays, and text-analyzations, than other types of writing, and it doesn't seem to be getting any easier. Sure the prompts are getting more difficult as I move through college, however the issue never seems to be the material, it always seems to be the writing techniques. Maybe I just don't realize the progress I'm making, but it seems like I could've written my unit three paper just as well last semester as I did this semester, and I'm not really sure how to change that. I guess I'll just have to take whatever critique I get, and keep on moving forward.

An interesting observation on your own writing progress, Andy, and also a great attitude about it. That will take you places. :-) I'm not sure what your expectations are about seeing improvement? If your goal is to be able to churn out a first draft of high quality with clear organization laying out your critical thinking on some topic of importance - that kind of expertise is the result of years of practice (in the form of rewriting). However, if your goal is to refine your writing process so that you can get to something quite readable and compelling to others in two-three drafts, I think you can pull that off without a problem. And imagine how much material you'll generate in the meantime for those comedy routines?! steph (COM) 18:06, 5 May 2007 (EDT)

Looking Ahead with Jessica

The more papers I write in English class, the more I learn about myself as a writer. Currently, I am working on my Unit Two rewrite. Once again I received a C as my grade the first time around. I struggled with this piece for some specific reasons. The main one being that I had a difficult time connecting with the story. I have never had to deal with moving to a new country, or adapting to a new culture. This made it hard to relate to the author.

Aside: I just saw the movie " Namesake, in which the main character quotes his grandfather explaining that the purpose of books (of reading) is to travel the world without going anywhere. The trick, as you identify, with reading about an experience that you do not identify with, is to find ways to interact with and respond to what is strange, as well as what is familiar. :-)

I did improve on my grammatical skills. I was actually really proud of myself because I was able to get rid of some of my bad habits. For example, you may remember that in my last reflection letter I mentioned time sequences. In this paper there was not even one instance where I made this error. Also, with this paper I tried harder to consider my audience when writing. I did not expect that the reader understand me, instead I tried to explain where I was coming from. Another thing I worked on was expanding my vocabulary. I was sure to use a variety of words to get my point across.

And these improvements are evident! Time sequencing is an important organizational skill. This does not mean one must follow chronological sequence (in fact, doing so is often rather boring), it means always informing your reader "where you are in time." Accurate use of tense is key, as well as transitional phrases and segues that move from past to present, present to past, past to future, future to past, future to present....etcetera. Incidentally, this is a parallel skill with the application of the rhetorical strategies: when/how (why) do you shift among ethos, logos, and pathos? Are you crafting the sentences in such a way that the reader experiences the rhetorical effect you intend? Do these accumulate to draw the reader along to the conclusions you hope they make, based on the power of your persuasion? :-)

There is something that I am constantly struggling with in all of my papers. That would be connection. I am still having trouble connecting all of my thoughts so that they flow together nicely. Steph even commented that, “You have good quotes and points, but the overall argument lacks consistency.” I am very aware of this issue, I’m just not sure on how to fix it. Hopefully, I will figure it out before the end of the semester.

The fact that you are aware of it is the first crucial step. Yeah! :-) Perhaps the comments I make here will help? The question of "connection" has to do with the transparency of your reasons for writing in the way you do. If your points and ideas flow from one to the next without giving the reader any glitches or pauses, then your thinking is plain. I don't mean simple, I mean that you've made it so clear that the reader doesn't question what the heck you're doing, or why you're going from this claim to that conclusion. Every time you write (and especially when you rewrite, smile), IF you keep thinking about the different ways a reader might interpret what you've written, and refine your sentences to make it less possible for the reader to make interpretations that are different than the one you want....then you will continue to improve in this area. I have no doubt. :-)

Overall, I improved on a lot of the little things. I am not saying these things are not important, because they do add up. Distractions take away from the paper, and they make the writing less pleasing to the eye. Now I will pay more attention to the paper as a whole, and concentrate on making clearer connections within my ideas. Jessica 20:55, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

Fantastic! steph (COM) 09:37, 6 May 2007 (EDT)

New and Older (!) Fafane

Dear Fafane,

Remember the last time you were reflecting on your writing how proud you were of your improvements, are you feeling the same way about your unit two paper? What’s new and what’s old? In the previous letter, for unit one, I set some high expectations for myself like working to get an A for my second paper since I have not yet. I had a hard time finding a claim to make an argument between the author, Anzaldua and me. For example, I started out by writing about how Anzaldua chose to tell her audience about her bad experiences instead of the glory of her cultures but at the end of my essay I ended up choosing her side. That was not how I was trying to conclude my interactions between me and the and the author but I guess because I am still not good at being clear with my claim, I messed up my ideas. I guess that mistake happened because I am still confused of the differences between a claim and having an argument/statement, if is keeping me from achieving my goals which is to get an A on at least one of my papers. Rewriting my unit 1 paper is getting me closer and closer because now I am only two points away from getting an A-; of course I am going to do a final rewrite to make it happen. After all, it is only making me a better writer.

Ah, I am so happy to read this: "I started out by writing about how Anzaldua chose to tell her audience about her bad experiences instead of the glory of her cultures but at the end of my essay I ended up choosing her side." You are learning how to watch your own thought evolve! :-) This is not "messing up with your ideas." Instead, this is exactly what good writing accomplishes - writing and rewriting pushes you to work through all the different things you think until you become CLEAR. The distinction between a claim and an argument is important. What is tricky about their relationship is that it can go "both ways" - I'll try to explain:

A claim can be a piece of evidence that you use as a building block in an overall argument.

An argument can be what you need to do in order to prove your claim.

The challenge for you (and for any writer), is to decide WHICH claim is "the big one" you want to argue, and then prioritize and organize "the smaller claims" into a flow that makes your argument consistent. As you said, your Unit One improves every single time. This will be true, always, if you keep trying. :-)

To continue reflecting on unit 2, I have to say that I am pleased with the initial grade that I received for my first final draft compare to my first assignment. The main reason why I did not get a better grade is because I was not clear enough and that has to stop and hopefully for unit three since it is going to be my last real assignment for this writing class. I have to learn to control myself so that I will stick to my one and only topic. Because I have the tendency to start with one claim and along the way change my mind and start with a new one neighborhoods. Overall, I am on my way and soon I will get to my destination.Phane88 07:48, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

You wrote about self-control. I tend to think of the term, discipline, as a bit more specific than self-control (a diction thing, smile). Yes, you must exercise your judgment about tangents and contradictions. Also, however, it is possible that the first claim, your first decision or conclusion, your "first thought" is NOT what you really think or believe or understand. Our first impulses may be from a range of sources (habit, conditioning, the way we think something "is supposed" to be)....but when we start to examine that first thought closely, we might discover we actually disagree. If this happens, the courageous thing to do (as a writer) is to CHANGE YOUR CLAIM to match what you've discovered (through the process of writing, grin) is what you really think.

Carry on! steph (COM) 09:59, 6 May 2007 (EDT)

Can One Whittle a Stream of Dan's Consciousness?

In my previous reflection essay, I stated two points that were evident from the first essay. First, I discussed how difficult it was for me to write about myself. This has not changed but it is not relevant in the second essay. Second, I talked about the improvement I have made with writing rhetorically. At the end of the first essay I found myself thinking harder about my audience and how others would perceive my work. In my second essay I found that I continued to struggle to write rhetorically because it has not become part of my thought process, but I feel that in the end of my essay I was able to produce a solid piece of work that would translate well to a variety of audiences.

Yes. :-)

In my second essay I analyzed Geeta Kothari’s short story, “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” I did not feel any particular affection for this piece of writing, but since I had to write about it, I decided to take a very unique viewpoint on the essay and then twist and turn the evidence from the story in order to fit my conclusion. My central idea for my essay on the writing was that immigrants should live in ghettos with people of the same descent in order to make their transition into a new life as seamless as possible. I do not agree with this viewpoint, which I liked because I had to think about this essay from a different point of view than my own in order to prove the point I had set out to establish.

Now THIS is one of the gifts of writing: to be able to effectively argue a viewpoint other than your own because you have learned to use language as a tool, rather then simply as a vehicle for self-expression.

Being able to warp pieces of information to strengthen a viewpoint is a skill that could be useful to me in the future. I am currently a kinesiology student and if I were to become a scientist, the research papers I would have to write rely heavily on citing many studies from a number of sources that build my argument. I feel I did a very effective job of using selected excerpts from Ms. Kothari’s story in order to back up my point.

Your diction intrigues me. I wonder about the use of ghetto, for instance - potentially this label is neutral, but I think most people would read it with a negative connotation. Does this choice somehow "betray" your basic disagreement with the notion of cultural segregation? Next, the word warp. Again, on the surface this words seems more negative than positive, yet you use it as a verb to describe a skill that you think could be useful. The neutral sense of "warp" from weaving comes to mind: "A lengthwise yarn found in all woven fabrics. The warp is stronger and denser than the weft (crosswise) yarns." (I'm not a weaver, some of the definitions contrast the warp with the woof, and some give it synonyms, such as chain or twist.)

I think that in the future I need to work on how I write rough drafts of essays. I try to write the rough draft to be the final copy, which means I spend a lot of time editing as I write. Instead of using this approach, I think I should create a very basic outline for the essay and then free write as much as I can. If I start going on a tangent, I should let it flow, if the grammar is not perfect, oh well, there will be plenty of time to revise later. My original draft of the second essay was written in the first style I talked about. The rough draft was a little over two pages and it did not give me much to work with. When I performed my rewrite, I free wrote seven pages of text and I was then able to whittle it down into something I was happy with. I think this technique will be much more helpful in the future. Dan 11:01, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

EXCELLENT strategy for the early drafts. Freewriting is the way to let all the diverse thoughts and random associations flow out so you can peruse them for coherency, novelty, and logical form. Editing energy is always best spent after your ideas are clear (although I don't think there is anything wrong with fixing things when you notice them - ideally your general freewriting can also improve in terms of its grammar and punctuation, leaving you less to worry about later.) steph (COM) 10:18, 6 May 2007 (EDT)

John? and The World

Dear John, This last paper was one of the hardest I have ever had to write. I did learn, however, that editing is still not my strong suit. I actually managed to completely omit a word; “Geeta’s vehemently pushes Indian culture on Geeta” should have the word father before vehemently. I also learned that it is not acceptable to use an author’s first name in formal writing. I also saw that I was frequently using the word “it”, which took away from the fluency of my paper and was a huge distraction. At the end of this essay, I start to wrap things up and get somewhat informal. This seems to be the case with all my essays. I will have written many paragraphs which accurately argue my claim and support it with multiple quotes, and then I will change things in my final paragraph. I will go off on a few tangents and make a few new conclusions about my claim and possibly the world in general. For my next essay, I want to close strongly by staying on topic and fighting for my claim until the last sentence. This should make my work more persuasive and allow my readers to be thinking of my claim and not the new things I have brought up.

I just wrote along these lines to Phane88 (“Old and New Fafane”) - about the process of reevaluating and even changing one’s claim over the course of an essay. The other details you mention are important too, especially that dastardly “it.”

I grinned when I read that you might wind up making “a few new conclusions…about the world in general.” :-) There does seem to be an implicit expectation that The Conclusion to a paper will offer tremendous wisdom or profound insight; I struggle with the desire to accomplish that with my own writing. May I suggest that integrity is more the point? I am not referring to an external moral standard, rather, that the end of anything you write should reflect what YOU LEARNED by writing so intensively about a particular topic. Is this too modest a goal?

I argued that the culture around a person is the culture inside them, which I believe is true. I think that I could have made my exact claim clearer because the author, Geeta Kothari, did have a good amount of exposure to her Indian culture. She would visit and had many other constant reminders. This, I should have argued, is why she is so resistant to American culture. By being so involved in Indian culture and present in an American culture, Kothari has trouble adapting to either. This essay has also taught me the importance of a solid claim, the more I wrote about this one, the more I wanted to revise it. At the end of the essay, I wish I had made my claim something along the lines of “when someone’s cultural surroundings change, they will adapt to the new culture, but they will keep at least a small part of their original culture. The problem I run in to with this claim, however, is that it may not have an opposing view. Had I thought more about my original claim, it would have made the essay much easier to write in terms of saying what I want to say strongly.

See, I’m not sure that “thinking about…[the] original claim” is adequate for clarification. The reason is that your mind holds thoughts in some kind of stasis that no one comprehends: what is the role of memory? What are the operations of consciousness? The act of writing forces us to put those thoughts into a linear sequence, revealing the disjunctures and allowing us the chance to tease out inconsistencies.

This essay was a great deal different than our first “identity” narrative in that we were interacting with other people’s work as opposed to our own experiences. Personally, I found it easier to interact with my own experiences just because I think much more about them. Kothari’s story was not easy to relate to, so I decided to take an analytical approach. I have learned from this essay that college writing demands perfection from start to finish. I stated out with a claim which had many holes that would be difficult to plug. Had I taken the time to formulate a proper claim, I could have written a much stronger paper. I see my writing improving each time I sit down and start typing. I am confident that, if I take a good amount of time to formulate my claim, my next paper will be much more effective and carry much more weight than this past one.John? 11:16, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

Jessica also wrote about the challenge of (not easily) relating. Do you think it is odd that we use the term, “relating,” with the connotation that we can only “relate” on the basis of similarity or commonality? Generically, we relate with a bizillion things, and in all kinds of ways. I have relationships, am related to, and interact with many people who I do not enjoy, who dislike or are indifferent to me, yet with whom life puts me into contact. One of the professors in the Communication Department, Briankle Chang, asks if miscommunication can be just as valid a starting point as (assumed) understanding.

Writing can help us clarify our own “mis”communications with ourselves, so that we can express our understandings more clearly to others.steph (COM) 14:01, 6 May 2007 (EDT)

PoorBored Peter the Impatient :-)

I will start this reflection by announcing that this assignment was the most difficult as well as boring assignment that I am sure I will have undertaken in this class. Having said that I am almost pleased with my unit one paper, and I am very excited to have the unit two paper done. My first paper is still somewhat in the works, but I feel as though, thanks to the feedback from Steph and moreover my unit one reflection letter, I finally know where I want to go with it and can possibly even pull off a decent grade. I felt as though because my unit one paper was about identity, I still felt like I was writing about identity in my head, which made the assignment even more difficult.

I think the overlap between Unit One and Unit Two was intensified because of the particular choice of articles for Unit Two: obviously both Kothari and Anzaldua were reflecting on their own identities. The value of rewriting, feedback, and reflecting on writing (even if you were bored!) is obvious: “I finally know where I want to go.” I am glad for your excitement, :-)

Neither of the first two articles interested me in the slightest, but I figured the Kothari article would be a little easier to write about. Which was a mistake demonstrated by my half page rough draft. I eventually grew to hate the article so I decided to write about my gripes with how she depicts dealing with a different culture. This was a task I thought I could accomplish and for the most part I almost did.

Do I notice equivocation?! “…I thought I could…for the most part…almost did.”  :-) Your strategy for choosing a claim worked well. Disagreement is as valid a way to interact as agreement, yet it has different challenges. One must attend to the use of rhetorical strategies to hold an audience (your readers) in a zone of contention. Is it obvious that these might be necessarily different than the strategies one would use to keep readers with you along a path of connection?

My problem was not necessarily the claims that I made however, the weak organization of the paper. I simply stated a bunch of misconstrued facts that served to confuse my audience. This overall disappointed me because I actually tried on getting my point across this paper and once again had to come to terms with the fact that I am no longer in high school. Disappointment is all I can say I have truly experienced with this paper because I had hopes of earning a grade higher than a C, which I guess my original writing is simply not capable of. On a second disparaging note, I proofread this paper at least three times to try to weed out the grammar mistakes I suffered from last time. This effort was pointless because instead of the whopping eleven mistakes I made last time, I made seventeen.

This may be little consolation, but it is common to make more errors when one is trying new things. I would not take the increase in type of error as evidence of no improvement, rather, it is evidence of risk-taking as you stretch to improve. Also, honestly? It takes years of practice before anyone can churn out an “original” first draft with accurate facts, no confusion, and clarity of argument. This is why we rewrite!

Overall the goals I set were not achieved with this paper, and I hope to fix my errors with this second rewrite. The basic lesson I have learned from the last two papers that I wrote in this class is simple: I should not quit my day job in order to become a writer.

IceCreamMan 11:51, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

There are not many day jobs for writers! Don’t sell yourself short or rule yourself out. The task at this point may not be instantaneous transformation into a bestselling author.  :-) Let’s be realistic: you have improved, you know it, and we can see it (particularly from draft-to-draft). What goal can you set yourself now that is do-able? What have you already accomplished? Which area or skill would have the most obvious effect on your readers, given where you are now? Sometimes the challenge is prioritization. :-) Hmmm, I just remembered the theme of impatience in your Identity Narrative. Here it comes again! steph (COM) 14:01, 6 May 2007 (EDT)

More Reflections on Reflecting from Steph

On Page Two of Steph's Feedback on Student's Second Reflection Letters, please find:

1. Anna Makes Claims
2. Dave Connects the Dots
3. Kelley's Gonna Show Us
4. Stick-To-It Nick
5. Not A FlyFishing Scotsman
6. Adam Inspires Soapbox Steph