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

[edit] The big One

Free writing serves to be an honest method to develop good writing skills. I do not like brainstorming my thoughts before placing them on a piece of paper. I enjoy writing whatever comes to my mind as I go along. Doing multiple drafts and letting others criticize my work helps me to grow as a writer.

In the beginning, I wrote about my personality in “So much for so little me.” I rewrote “So much for so little me” about five times because I wanted to get at least an A. It was my best work yet, and I was satisfied with the results. At first, I free wrote my rough draft and was about eight pages long. After I was done with my first draft, Kent, the teacher pointed out that my identity was unknown to the reader(s). I had to figure out a way to convince my audience of who I was and the best rhetorical strategy to use was ethos; meaning that I needed to use past or occurring events; from growing up in Haiti, moving to America, to leaving home for college as defining identity. “Identity means finding who you are to the world, especially with those people who live around you”(Etienne, par. 3) is my definition of identity based on past and experiences. In Haiti, my neighbors rely on “education, family and knowledge” I too believe on that concept which makes me who I am today.

When comparing my writing in print versus online, they are both two different ways of expressing my thoughts. On the wiki, I decide what is available to the public where as in the magazine; the teacher decides which writing piece should represent me as an author. I was one of the editors from the magazine. I am the author of the introduction, “So much for so little me”, and “My self Reflected” in the magazine. It tells me that my story is worth reading like my peers’. On the wiki, I had to put the works that I liked and also write a small description to give the readers an idea of the assignments. I can put my rough drafts and get feedbacks from my teacher online and anyone can see them unless I remove the feedbacks. The wiki is similar to a drafting process because I have to put my first, second, and final drafts. In the magazine, it has to be the final product and the editors might take the context of my writing and insert their opinions if there are clarity issues. I have to say that my writing in the magazine is exactly what I have as my final draft.

The advantages of putting my papers online are that I can choose to be anonymous which I am or known, I can always delete and edit. The advantage of the magazine is that I will always have something to look back on. The disadvantages of the wiki are that if a person is looking up my name, which I did not supply, he/she will find my work, and that it takes a long time to keep up with the wiki workload, I hate having discussions online. The magazine is here forever and it will never go away. I do not see a big different between the two because I am still the author.

In English Writing 112 Section 71, I learn that an author always reflects on his/her work. After completing the assignments, I notice that I need to work on grammar, time sequencing, organization, spelling errors, fragments, and taking out any unnecessary words. My biggest problem is recognizing where to put commas, semicolons, and colons. From “My self Reflected,” I wrote: “I need to believe in myself and put my ideas together. I need to write as clear as I can so my audience can understand where I am coming from and the main point of my paper.” Even though that was for my first unit paper, I still had trouble with clarity for both unit two and three. I manage to improve in my rewrites which is proof that reflecting on my work is for the best. To be direct, reflection is not the entire package for improvements, there is also feedbacks. “As of now I can feel and see that I am becoming a better writer than I ever was and I know that is because of the feedbacks that I got from my peers and the teacher”(Letter 1, par. 2).

My rough draft for interacting with Anzaldua was disorganized. The rough draft was so confusing that even one of my peers, Anna states: “I was distracted by the focus of your essay because your transitions were not clear.” She could not even recognize the claim because there were multiple. “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.” Both my teacher’s feedback and Anna’s help me clarify my claim in the final product which I had planned to rewrite but time did not permit.

Overall, I prefer the magazine because not all of my writings are publish. I enjoyed being an editor especially writing the introduction. I have improve in my grammar, in-text citations from unit three, a little bit in time sequencing. I do not write in complex sentences anymore, I use evidenc e to strengthen my arguments. I am becoming a better writer after every rewrites.