Bailey Steed

May 6th 2016

Reflection
Throughout this semester my writing abilities have improved
tremendously. Not only has this class improved my abilities, but it has also
enhanced my urge to read and write. I feel that the more a person writes and
the better they become, the more they will successfully be able to express
their thoughts. Coming into this semester, the most recent writing class I had
taken was English in my junior year of high school. At this time in high
school, language was not something I had an urge to learn more about or
even spend time in. As I entered into this UWRT class I did not know what to
expect. Not only was this the first writing class I had taken in a few years, but
it would also be my first experience with a college level writing professor.
The expectations I had as a first for this class were set very high. I expected
summaries, definitions, grammar, etc. I soon came to find that this was not
the case. While in this class not only did I learn important writing techniques
but I also learned more about myself as a writer.
At the beginning of the second semester, I set a few personal goals for
myself. The first of these was that I would not slack off at any point in the
class. As a whole, I feel that I was successful with this but not when it comes
to certain aspects. The main time that I saw myself slacking off when looking
back is during my Memos and my Rough Drafts. Not only did I breeze
through my memos with little effort, but almost all of my cover letters and
memos were nearly identical. In some cases, this may be a good thing, but

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May 6th 2016
when each memo is supposed to answer different questions than others, this
is not a good thing. When I say that I slacked off with my drafts I do not
mean that I didnt do them. What I mean by this is that I only put forth
enough effort to get by. The purpose of a draft is to put down initial thoughts
and ideas so that you can later elaborate on them in your final paper. For me,
there was hardly a difference in my rough drafts and my final papers. A lot of
times when I would look back and compare my rough drafts and my finals,
the word counts would nearly be identical. Another goal that I had set for
myself was to stay organized. I without a doubt feel that I successfully met
this goal. I can say this because of how easy it was first me to gather all of
my information at the end of the semester for my writers notebook. The
ways that I stayed organized include always doing in class assignments and
being sure to date them, and I also made sure to always save my rough
drafts and final papers onto my USB. My third and final goal was to make an
A in the class. I have yet to see if I accomplished this goal, but with the
amount of work and time that Ive put into my writings and research, I feel
hopeful that I will achieve this. Meeting these goals was not an easy task, but
with proper strategies and processes it was much easier.
Each person has a different inquiry/writing process. This class helped
me to find my true process. As a younger and less experienced writer, I only
believed in writing one paper and reading back through to check for
grammatical errors. I have recently discovered that there is much more effort
and time needed to write a half decent paper. For me, this process includes

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May 6th 2016
an original brainstorm, a rough draft or even two, a peer review, my own
personal review, and then a final. At times in the class I definitely slacked off
with my process and began to get lazy. When I did this is when I began to
receive feedback such as Be sure to re-read your paper. And what not.
When writing I have discovered that my environment plays a crucial role in
my process. I personally cannot stand to be in a room with others while
writing, even if thats the library. For me, I have to be in a room alone with
light music playing. I know it needs to be silent for a lot of people to think,
but not for me. For some reason light music helps for me to transfer my
ideas onto paper. Another critical thing for me is to not procrastinate
beginning assignments. I struggled a lot with this in high school, but as Ive
moved on to college I feel that this issue is beginning to diminish. In terms of
writing, I definitely write better when I have more time to think on a topic
and more time to transfer my ideas. When I do procrastinate I end up with
end products such as my memos and even some of my rough drafts where I
only wrote what was needed to get by and nothing more.
When breaking down each writers individual writing processes you
really begin to see their strengths and weaknesses. For me I feel that I have
many strengths when it comes to writing. The first of these strengths is my
newly found ability to set aside all distractions and focus on a paper. Unlike
many college students, it is not hard for me to ignore my phone and even
friends for a few hours while I work on an assignment. This was very difficult
for me in high school but for some reason I no longer struggle with that.

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May 6th 2016
Another strength that I have is my research skills. When an inquiry/research
project presents itself, it is not hard for me to sit down and do the required
research. In this class, the research aspect was very easy for me to complete
due to the fact that what I was researching was so relevant to my own life.
My next aspect that I would consider a strength is my ability to find friends
who are willing to review my paper. A lot of times I will review my own paper
and blindly look over errors that are right under my nose. I have realized that
it is very helpful to find a friend in the class who is a pretty good writer and
peer review each others papers. My fourth and final strength that I have is
my drive to impress. As an athlete, I have always had the urge to impress
people whether that be on or off the field. When it comes to writing, I am
constantly competing to beat the scores of others in my class.
Though it is easy for me to emphasize my strengths, it is even easier
for me to emphasize my weaknesses. The first of my weaknesses includes
putting too much on my plate. When saying this I am referring to the amount
of schoolwork and extracurricular that I allow to pile up on top of me. At
times baseball and Young Life can dictate my life and take away from the
time that is needed to complete an assignment. Another one of my
weaknesses is my urge to compare my writing to others. If this class has
shown me one thing, it is that each writer has his/her own individual style of
writing. I have always struggled to try to reach the levels of certain kids in
my class who are aiming for completely different goals than I am. My third
weakness is how easily I allow myself to become overly stressed. As a

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May 6th 2016
college student, stress is expected, but not to the extent to which I allow it at
times. I have recently began trying techniques that I found while writing my
problem based paper in an attempt to reduce this stress. My final weakness
is my tendency to avoid going deeper in my writings. At times I do feel that I
elaborate enough on a specific topic but multiple times in the class it was
evidence that I was only grazing the surface. One time when I did this was
while writing my Narrative. To the left is a screenshot where I was supposed
to elaborate on how I learned to snow board and the different factors that
contributed to it. As you can see, I obviously failed to go into any depth
whatsoever. A main way that I noticed how to avoid this lack of depth is to
allow myself to be vulnerable in my writings.
Looking back on this semester and even beginning to look into
the future, I have set a few goals for myself. The first of these goals is that I
continue to read and write on a more consistent basis. This class has taught
me that literacy can truly make
a difference in the way a person
writes or even the way they get
their points across. My other
goal is to take the strategies
and skills that I have developed
in this class and put them to use in other classes and other aspects of my
daily life. Not only has this class made me a better writer, but it has also
showed me the importance of language.

Bailey Steed
May 6th 2016