Final Open Letter

HERE

Reflection on Open Letter Draft

In this blog post I will be reflecting on the peer feedback that I received on my Open letter draft.

Oregon's Mt. Hood Territory. "Mount Hood reflected in Mirror Lake, Oregon" Public Domain Dedication.

I peer reviewed Jayni and Nick's draft.

From what I have learned based off of what other students have expressed, we all seem to be in the same boat. Most of us were somewhat taken aback by this english class because it was so much different from the english classes that we were used to taking even though everyone had a different experience with english in the past. The heavy workload and writing in many different genres was new for me and I'm not alone. Along with me, I would say that the majority of people are procrastinators like myself, although there are differing severities. This course has helped me fight against the urge to procrastinate due to the structure of the coursework and from what I have heard others have benefitted as well.


1. Did you demonstrate an ability to think about your writing and yourself as a writer? 

Yes. In my Open Letter Draft I provided a backbone of ideas to elaborate on. In my draft I talked about several things that I think of my own writing style but in my final I will try to become more specific about the things that I have done this year in term of myself as a writer.
2. Did you provide analysis of your experiences, writing assignments, or concepts you have learned?

I think that I did provide analysis of my own experiences in the class. I provided examples of certain assignment that were assigned throughout the year and I talked about how I approached them at the beginning of the year vs how I changed and improved by the end of the year.
3. Did you provide concrete examples from your own writing (either quotes from your writing or rich descriptions of your writing process)? 

I did provide examples of my own writing to support the claims that I made throughout the letter. I did not quote myself or give very specific examples however and this is where I can improve my letter.
4. Did you explain why you made certain choices and whether those choices were effective?

I did explain why some of the choices that I made were made. The main reason being that in the past I wasn't successful in certain aspects of writing so I made a choice to try to change that.
5. Did you use specific terms and concepts relating to writing and the writing process? 

I did use at least one specific term that relates to writing and that was genre. I specifically talked about how we observed genre this year and how what I have learned from doing so will help me in my future endeavors.

Draft of Open Letter

In this blog post I will be providing you with a link to my draft of an open letter.

Reneman. "DRAFT ICON" 2/24/2013. Creative Commons.

HERE is a link to my draft.

I want you to pay attention to the organization of my letter and tell me if it flows well. A lot of times my writing can come off as choppy. Should I move this sentence somewhere else? Should I move a whole paragraph to a different part of the paper? Im worried that the letter might be too formal or not formal enough so look out for that. Obviously look out for grammatical errors but also let me know if the conventions of a letter are met. Thanks.

Reflecting More on My Writing Experiences

In this blog post I will be reflecting further on my writing experiences during this class by answering some questions.

Kjunstorm. "Flower reflection" 4/7/2010. Creative Commons.

1. What were the biggest challenges you faced this semester, overall?
The biggest challenge this year was keeping up with the course work. I felt that there was a lot to be done each and every week. This was hard for me because I am a procrastinator by nature which made everything very difficult to finish on time with high quality.

2. What did you learn this semester about your own time managment, writing and editorial skills?
I learned that time management is a very useful skill to have. I always thought that I have been good at time management until I came to college. In the weeks of this school year that I was on top of all my work I produced some of the best work. After realizing my writing and editorial skills became much better.

3. What do you know about the concept of 'genre'? Explain how understanding this concept is central to being a more effective writer.
genre is very important in writing. I never really had much concept of genre coming into this class because most of the writing I had done was directed at one person, my teacher. Now that I have studied genre I know that it is one of the most important concepts when writing.

4. What skills from this course might you use and/or develop further in the next few years of college coursework?
My time management skills will definitely develop in the near future. After taking this class where everything was basically a timeline, I realized that time management is key when doing work. I hope to develop this skill further because I saw a hint of success when I used it correctly in this class.

5. What was your most effective moment from this semester in 109H? 
The most effective moment in this class was when I was ahead of the game on my blog posts and I finished project 2 draft ahead of time. This gave me so much time to revise the essay that I had wrote as well as gave me optimal time to have other people review and comment on my work through peer review.

6. What was your least effective moment from this semester in 109H? 
The hardest part of this class was falling behind. Several times throughout the semester I fell behind and it was seemingly impossible to catch back up. It was these moments when I realized that I was putting out some of my worst work.

Revisiting My Writing Process.

In this Blog post I will be revisiting my first two blog posts and reflecting on what I wrote in them.

Ferreira, Rosana. "Revisit (12854291315)" 2/2/2014. Creative Commons.

In my post "My Writing Process" I talked a lot about being a heavy procrastinator because I often found that I would spend too long thinking about what I was going to write rather than just starting to write. Because of the way that I used to write, I would often not have enough time to revise my work, a crucial step in the writing process. I talked about how I would usually get the paper done by the deadline despite procrastinating but that the work wouldn't be the best quality possible. This is something that I have worked on a lot throughout the semester and I think that I have set myself on a good track. The way that Mr. Bottai has the class organized forced me to complete a draft before I would have on my own. This has really helped me because it has given me ample time to revise my work which I talked about being one of the worst parts about my writing. I feel that after taking this class it has shown me a better way to be successful and in the near future I will adopt many of the techniques used in this class. The main technique being smarter with my time management by doing things in chunks and not leaving everything for the last moment. In the next couple of years I see myself as being a much better writer mainly because of the organizational techniques I used in this class.